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SX^lJL<xJ(/rt>*l<.x/w V*WV^ 



What They 
"Showed Me" 



in 



Southea^ 
Missouri 



COPYRIGHTED |W3 BY HUGH. D. STUOA'^-^E^ 



CONTEXTS. 



Preface • • 3 

Earthquake Shock of 1909 -3 

Kennett "Had a Chill" 4 

•■Quake" of January 29, 1913 4 

New Madrid Earthquake, Bulletin 494.. 4 

"Sunk Lands" 5 

Comparison of San Francisco "Quake," 
"Sand Blows" with Those of New 

Madrid "Quake" 5 

< cntennial of New '^ladrid "Quake".... 5 

I'rof. McGee's Prediction 6 

Residents' Account of 1898 "Quake"... 6 

Have All Contracts Written Ones 7 

"Jiggers" and Snakes 7 

Farm Purchase and Commission 8 

Trouble Keeping Potatoes 9 

Fireworks at Christmas 10 

Taxes 10 

Trust Deed and Notice of Sale 11 

Oats 12 

Country Too Hot for Horses 12 

"Mired Up" 12 

Home of the Ciiattel Mortgage 13 

Drinking Water 13 

Spy System 13 

Cockle Burrs 13 

■'Chopping Out" 14 

Down in the ■■Sticks" 14 



Fleas 14 

Heat Kills the Hogs 14 

Flies and Mosquitoes 14 

Watermelon Crop 14 

Typhoid Fever 15 

■Risings" lb 

The People Pay the Freight 17 

Hot Weather in This Country 18 

Hogs Dying with Cholera 18 

What You Take for "Chills" 18 

Pneumonia 19 

Cold Weather 20 

Rock Road 21 

Schools 21 

High Water of 1912 22 

Heavy Rains 22 

Potato Bugs and ■'Bull Nats" 22 

A. J. Matthews' ■'Dog Story" 23 

Roasting Fleas as a Pastime 25 

■■Swamp-East"' (Poetry) 25 

Mrs. Studabaker's ■'Chill Experience".. 26 

List ■ of Chill Tonics 26 

Dredge Ditches in ''Quicksands" 27 

"lulling" Chattel Mortgages 2P> 

My Visit with Mr. .Amos 28 

l^'inancial Exhibit 31 

Appendix 31 



©CI.A3464G1 



Preface 



A Little Book dedicated to tliose wlio, like 
myself, are trying to better their condition — 
trying to make a starting point for those of 
their family that come after them, so that their 
journey through life might be made just a little 
easier, so that some of the rough places might 
be smoothed over and there would be a little 
more pleasure for them, while for those that 
go before it is all pioneer life with its attendant 
hardships. It is to save YOU from the pitfalls 
that are ever spread before the newc'cmer, that 
I am writing this booklet, and is a truthful 
account of my near four years' experience trying 
to make some money in the SWAMP country of 
southeast Missouri, the home of the New Atadrid 
Earthquake of 1811-12. Read it through carefully 
— heed what I tell you — and I assure you it will 
be worth $$$$$ to you, while its cost, if anything, 
is a mere trifle: yet it cost me a-plenty — near 
four years of the best part of my life and ot 
my children's school life. 

Compelled to be a philanthropist for near 
four years, helping to redeem some of this 
swamp land, I am now willing to continue to be 
a philanthropist if by so doing I can save some 
other person from a like fate. Rea'd carefully 
— read thoroughly. 

Near Four Years in the Swamps of Missouri, 

Which Were :Made by the New IMadrid 

Earthquake of 1811-12. 

American people have the "Hurry" idea; they 

hurry to do this and hurry to do that, and 

oftentimes they hurry into something that a 

little of the "Stop — Look and Listen" principle 

rightfully applied would have saved them years 

of worry and money loss. 1 am taking this 

lesson home to myself and giving it to you, that 

if you want to and will \ou can save yourself 

a like experience. 

In the spring of 1909, having heard of the 
wonders of southeast Missouri, through our lo- 
cal real estate agents, Messrs. Hale & Markley, 
of Bluffton, Indiana, I came here on a pros- 
pecting trip and spent one day, April 19th, 
riding out into the country with Mr. J. F, Cox 



of the then C. M. Smith Bros. & Co. real estate 
agency of Sikeston, Mo. It rained and hailed 
that day, but 1 saw the country, went back 
home, told the family what I had seen, read 
over their profusely illustrated folder of the 
country and its immense possibilities, and we 
decided to try it. Right here I should have 
stopped and studied the country at greater 
length. A personal friend of mine tried to head 
me off. Cautioned m.e against collusion among 
real estate agents to try and skin the unwary; 
Ijut hadn't I been down here and met the 
people and knew more about it than he did? 

Although I was a high school graduate, I did 
not know of the New Madrid Earthquake and 
its great extent and I did not stop to investi- 
gate. Here let me call your attention to the 
fact that our Government does all in its power 
to keep its people informed, and were you 
thinking of trying a new country, if you would 
take up the location with the Geological Depart- 
ment of the Government I am most sure you 
would get information to your advantage. It 
took me quite a while to learn this, and it came 
about in this way: After being in this country 
a while naturally I met up with and talked 
conditions with the people, some of whom had 
lived most all of their lives here, and the sub- 
ject of the formation of the land being up. ] 
asked as to how all these piles of sand occurred 
and they told me they were sand blows. Then 
there being some deeper depressions on the 
farm, I was informed that they were sink holes. 
Well, these matters rather aroused my interest 
and a further interest was awakened by the 
fact that on the 23rd of October, 1909, there 
was a real earthquake shoik. which was felt 
generally all over the countrx- that was affected 
by the earthquake of 1811-12. I give you here 
what the Post-Dispatch of St. Louis said about 
this shock, as they gathered their news gen- 
erally all over the district affected, and what 
I might say as to personal experience would 
only be local. 



"EARTHQUAKE DISTURBS SLUMBER 

"About 1 o'clock Saturday Morning — Felt All 

Along Mississippi. 

"Half the population in Alton was aroused 
soon after 1 a. m. Saturtlay, October 23, 1909, 
bv an earthquake shock said to have been more 
severe than that which startled St. Louis and 
its vicinity several weeks ago. The earthquake 
was not local, reports saying- that it was felt 
as far south as Paragould, Ark., and was par- 
ticularly severe at Cape Girardeau, Mo., where 
it was "the heaviest shock felt for many years. 
Heavy rumbling accompanied the quake. The 
quake was felt in Cape Girardeau at 1:15 a. m., 
lasting about a minute. The vibration came 
from the west. The ground seemed to undulate 
and buildings rocked. Paragould reports a 
shock lasting 10 seconds; at the same time 
Memphis, Tenn., also felt a slight shock. At 
St. Peters, Mo., in St. Charles county, the 
earthquake was felt plainly by several. Alton 
appears to have borne the brunt of the dis- 
turbance in the vicinity of St. Louis. Many 
persons declare the walls of their houses quiv- 
ered perceptibly and the ground heaved. W. T. 
Norton, former postmaster of Alton, said he 
felt three shocks, the first of which awakened 
liim. The shocks were several seconds apart, 
Mr. Norton said, and all of a brief duration. 
They seemed to pass from west to east, but 
Norton described them as being mostly up and 
down. 

"An alarm clock which Emil Mook, an Alton 
printer, had on a table beside his bed was 
shaken" to the floor by the disturbance. 

"Towns in southeast Missouri other than 
Cape Girardeau where the shock was felt dis- 
tinctly are Sikeston and Charleston. The 
report from Sikeston says all the inhabitants 
were aroused by the severity of the tremor, 
while in Charleston many persons were 
awakened. Charleston reports that the earth- 
quake lasted one minute. 

"Cairo, 111, felt the shock at 1:08 a. m. for 
about 15 seconds. Many persons were awakened 
by the shaking of their houses and the rumbling 
sound. 

"Cairo, Memphis, Cape Girardeau, Charleston, 
Sikeston, and Paragould are in the area chiefly 
affected bv the great New Madrid Earthquake 
of 1811, which caused a large territory in south- 
east Missouri and northeast Arkansas and 
across the Mississippi to become Swamp Lands." 

Again I clipped from our paper, The Sikeston 
Standard, the following item. 

KENNETT HAD A CHILL. 

Several in this city felt a distinct earthquake 
shock Monday at 11 o'clock that lasted a quar- 
ter of a minute. It was especially noticeable In 
the brick buildings. One lady said that the 
pereformance was repeated Monday night, taut 
few of Kennett's people stay awake late at 
night. — Kennett Democrat. 

Since writing this near four years' experience 
of mine in "Swampeast" Missouri, the home of 
the New Madrid E'earthquake of 1811-12, and 
before the publication of it there has been 
another quite severe earthquake shock and I 
herewith give the newspaper account of it as 
published by the Southeast Missourian, a paper 
at Portageville, Mo. : 

DID YOU FEEL IT? 

At just 5:15 o'clock Wednesday morning one 
of the hardest earthquakes in a number of 
years was felt bv quite a number of Portage- 
ville citizens. The editor can't say truthfully 
that he did not feel it because it tossed him 
about in his bed, rattled the windows and mum- 
bled louder than any big freight train. In Mr. 
Christian's house, we are told, it stopped his 
clock. It was of a few seconds duration, but a 
mighty hard spasm old mother earth had at 
Portageville." 

The date above referred to was January 29th, 
1913. 

These happenings so stirred my desire for 
more Information that I began to correspond 
with leading colleges as to where I could get 
full information as to the New Madrid Earth- 
quake of 1811-12 and was referred to the Jour- 



nal of Geology, published by the University at 
Chicago Press, and in their January-February 
number, 1905, I found a very complete article 
by Edward M. Shephard, Springfield, Mo. ; also, 
in the American Geologist, published at Minne- 
apolis, Minn., I found an article by &. C. Broad- 
head. Then at last I wrote the United States 
Geological Survey of our Department of the 
Interior, and they mailed to me BULLETIN No. 
491: THE NEW MADRID EARTHQUAKE, by 
M>ron L. Fuller. This is a book of some 120 
pages and replete with valuable information 
for anyone thinking of making a home in this 
"Earthquake Zone" or of acquiring property 
therein. 

You owe it to yourself and your family to 
know the country, as far as it is given us power 
to know, the dangers that exist in that country 
from forest fires, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes 
and earthquakes, wherein you would take them 
to live, for where you live you wish to feel as 
safe and secure from these dangers as It is 
possible to be — that breeds contentment and a 
desire to live and build for the future. But 
where dangers of floods exist — where tornadoes 
and cyclones prevail to a greater extent — where 
you are told by leading geologists that you are 
living on one of the "Earth's Weak Spots," a 
different feeling exists, and where these state- 
mehts are backed up by frequent "shakes," as 
the papers have quoted and I have copied 
herein, you would do well to "Stop — Look and 
Listen" before getting tied up there. I do not 
wish to burden this booklet with copying much 
of detailed reports therein, like this Bulletin 
494. issued by the U. S. Geological Survey, for 
you can get one and study it for yourself, the 
same as I have, but I will call your especial 
attention to a few of the different parts of it, 
by pages, so that you can readily refer to what 
I think important for one to know that is figur- 
ing on either buying property here or coming 
to handle the plow over these "sand blows," 
"sink-holes," filled in "fissures" and other 
markings of the greatest earthquake upheaval 
and depression known to civilized man. Page 7 
gives a location of the earthquake, which is 
very important, in that it locates for you where 
the' earthquake did the most damage. Page 9 
carries with it a map of the district and sets 
out for you where the sand blows were the 
most pronounced, where the greatest sinking 
of the land took place and where the domes 
were formed. I think this plate or map a very 
valuable one for a person to have that is con- 
templating settling in this country or of pur- 
chasing property here. Pages 10 and 11 give a 
graphic account of the disaster and is very in- 
teresting reading. I often thought that I would 
be most willing to be present at a repetition 
of the disaster, were it possible to do so. until 
I read these accounts and thought how it would 
lie to be routed out about the middle of Decem- 
ber, 2 a, m.. and stand shivering in the cold 
the rest of the night with the fear of being 
swallowed up by the earth at any moment. 
Page 12 gives Indian tradition of previous dis- 
turbances of this country by earthquakes and 
also corroborative evidence that they did occur. 
Pages 14 and 15 give the location of the center 
of the disturbance and locates it about 16 miles 
to the west of the Mississippi River. Page 16 
is a very important one in that it gives the 
area of "the disturbance, which of the most 
marked disturbance, such as domes, sunk lands, 
fissures, sinks, sand blows, landslides, etc., 
comprised from 30,000 to 50,000 square miles 
and extended from a point west of Cairo on 
the north to the latitude of Memphis on the 
south, a distance of about 100 miles, and from 
Crowlev's ridge on the west to Chickasaw Bluffs 
on the" east, a distance of over 50 miles, then 
the area of sleight earth disturbances and also 
the area of tremors. Page 17 records the "Gen- 
eral Destructiveness of the Shocks" and reads 
something like a modern day write-up of a 
powder mill explosion without the attendant 
fatalities. On page 21 you will find what the 
earthquake did to the roads of the country. 
Pages 31 and 32 give accounts of the nature of 
the vibrations and make very interesting read- 
ing. On page 34 is given the number of re- 



corded shocks as 1,874. Page 45 gives account 
of odors and vapors that impregnated the air, 
caused by the earthquake. Pages 47 to 52 take 
up the Assuring caused by the earthquake; 
and the fact that people are said to have felled 
large trees to sit on wlien the earth waves 
rolled under them and would burst, is serious 
enough to make a person want to save a few 
tall cypress or gum trees on their land, if for 
no other reason. Pages 54 and 55 give interest- 
ing data as to certain peculiar incidents caused 
by the Assuring, one of which is amusing to 
read, but no doubt serious enough to e.xpe- 
rience. It is related by LeSieur: It seems that 
a Mr. Culberson lived on a V-shaped point in 
a bend of Pemiscot River, embracing about an 
acre of ground, on which his well and smoke- 
house were situated, l>ing between the house 
and the river. On the morning of the earth- 
(luake Mrs. Culberson started to go to the 
smokehouse for meat, only to And the path 
crossed by the wide stream, the smolcehouse 
and well "being seen across the river, on the 
opposite side from where they were the night 
before. Page 62 speaks of where writers of the 
great quake call attention to the turning back 
of the Mississiupi River and of the closing of 
an entrance to Little River from the Mississippi 
River some three miles below New Madrid. 
Pages 64 to 75 deal with the "Sunken Lands" 
of this earthquake country and it is sure in- 
teresting reading to anyone, and especially so 
to anyone who has lived near four years in 
this country and had an opportunity to study it 
at close hand. Now page 77 gives a picture of 
sand blows taken in California, which sand 
blows were formed in the recent San Francisco 
earthquake, and they surely look like those in 
this country, of which there seems to be no 
end. Pages 79 to 83 give interesting descrip- 
tions of these sand blows and how in some 
localities they are so thick that the edges of 
one touch the other and give the country a 
very sandy appearance. Pages 83 to 85 speak 
on sand sloughs, pronounced "sloos." "Sinks" 
are very fully described on pages 87 and 88, and 
as you plow through some of these "sink holes" 
in dry times you wonder how they looked and 
how it was around here when they were formed. 
Pages 89 to 94 give different accounts of the 
action of the earthquake on the waters of the 
Mississippi River and furnish very interesting 
reading to one living not right in this "Earth- 
quake Zone." Pages 95 to 99 take up the effect 
the earthquake had on the forests, and from 
the descriptions and the damage done you 
wonder that there is as much timber in this 
country as there is. Pages 99 and 100 treat of 
the effect of the "quake" on artiAcial structures. 
and from the long continuance of this par- 
ticular earthquake period it is no wonder that 
there was few frame buildings left standing. 
Page 101 treats of tne noises accompanying the 
earthquake, and that there is I can testify to 
the truth of it. for the quake of Oct. 23rd, 1909, 
was accompanied by a noise like an explosion 
to the west of our home. Pages 102 to 104 take 
up Popular Beliefs of the Origin and Cause and 
Evidence of Origin of this Earthquake, and are 
very interesting. The "Ultimate Cause" of this 
earthquake as written up on page 105 is well 
worth reading to anyone, either living in this 
affected country or contemplating living there. 
Page 109 gives Contemporaneous Disturbances 
and it seems that there was a-plenty doing in 
the earthquake line at that time. Page 110 is 
very interesting reading in that it speaks of 
the probabilities of a recurrence of this earth- 
quake and when, judging it by other earth- 
quakes, records of which have been kept over 
periods of several hundred years, and they show 
that they axe to be expected about every 100 
years. This page also gives names of localities 
that would be the most affected were it to 
occur again. 

This constitutes the whole of the book that 
is devoted to the general description of this 
great earthquake and is very Ane reading and 
very instructive to anyone, and especially to 
parties thinking of locating in this locality for 
a home or investment. 

It seems that while I was hunting for news 



relating to this greatest of earthquakes, that 
everything most that pertained to it came 
under my observation, and being the century 
anniversary of it, and the only paper that had 
published an account of it 100 years ago, the 
St. Louis Republic, gave quite a write-up of 
the catastrophe, and I here copy their account 
of it: 

"CENTENNIAL OF MISSOURI'S EARTH- 
QUAKE." 
(St. Louis Repul)lic of Sunday, Nov. 12th, 1911.) 
"One hundred years ago this month the trap- 
pers, squatters, traders and settlers down the 
valley from St. Louis were listening now and 
again to certain strange and portentious noises 
that seemed to come from beneath the earth. 
There were some timorous souls among them 
who claimed to have felt the earth tremble 
beneath their feet. .lust as always, the doubt- 
ers laughed and mocked and continued to 
doubt. 

"It was late in December that the mightiest 
earthquake that ever rocked North America 
struck the New Madrid country. There were 
more lives lost in San Francisco, that time the 
earth there shook loose from its moorings, but 
the PaciAc quake did not utterly change the 
face of the country like this valley tremor that 
lasted for days and weeks. 

"It was then that the Mississippi River ran 
uphill for hours. The great mass of water 
hurrying toward the Gulf paused and turned 
back" upon itself. All the valley was a-quiver. 
Great geysers opened in the good black earth 
of the valley. Some of these sink-holes fumed 
and murmured for years afterwards. It was in 
December, 1811, that the valley found itself 
being shaken as a terrier shakes a rat. The 
premonitory rumblings and grumblings among 
the rocks" no longer frightened the valley 
dwellers. They had grown used to them. 

"St. Louis went to bed on Sunday night, De- 
cember 15, without any apprehension. The 
tremors and grumblings had not been bothering 
the valley this far north. Very early in the 
morning of the 16th the earth began to wabble 
like a drunken man. St. Louis promptly for- 
r.ook his bed and ran out into the streets. All 
the rest of the night and till noon of Monday 
the rocking, roaring and trembling was kept up 
at short intervals. 

"Missouri was all a-quiver. Thousands of 
acres of land to the west of the river sank and 
the waters of the Mississippi invaded the newly 
made low grounds. Missouri taxpayers are still 
paving for the damage caused during the last 
days "of December. 1811, and the early months 
of" 1812. Big Government dredges are now 
rooting their way through these swamps, drain- 
ing and opening them up to the belated plow. 
Had it not been for this tremendous earthquake 
the swamp lands of Missouri would have been 
small in area. 

"That earthquake has cost Missouri millions 
in deferred population, lost production and the 
actual cost of draining the quake-sunken lands. 
The Arst newspaper account of the tremor, 
afterwards known as the New Madrid earth- 
quake, was published in The Missouri Gazette, 
now The St. Louis Republic. This was pub- 
lished on Saturday. December 21, 1811. and the 
extent of the disaster was by no means known 
at the time. In fact, tue greater part of the 
sinking took place some time later. 

" 'On Monday morning last.' says the editor, 
'about a quarter past 2, St. Louis was visited 
by one of the most violent shocks of earth- 
quake that has been recorded since the discov- 
erv of our country. As we were all wrapt in 
sleep, each tells his story in his. own way. I 
will also relate my simple tale. 

" .T.t the period above mentioned I was roused 
from sleep by the clamor of windows, doors and 
furniture in tremendous motion, with a distant, 
rumbling noise resembling a number of car- 
riages passing over the pavement. In a few 
seconds the motion and subterraneous thunder 
increased more and more. Believing the noise 
to proceed from the north or northwest, and 
expecting the earth to be relieved by a vol- 



canic eruption, I ran out of doors and looketl 
for the dreadful phenomena. 

" 'The ag-itation had now reached its utmost 
violence. I entered the house to march my 
family from its expected ruins, but before I 
could put my designs into execution the shock 
had ceased, having- lasted about one and three- 
quarter minutes. 

" 'The sky was obscured by a thick, hazy 
fog-, without a breath of air; a Fahrenheit ther- 
mometer might have stood at this time about 
:J.5 or 40 degrees. At forty-seven minutes past 
2 another shock was felt, without tlie rumbling 
noises and much less violent than the first. It 
lasted over two minutes.' 

"The account continues with a description of 
still other shocks that kept the harassed St. 
Louisans on the move till daybreak and after. 

" 'The morning was very drizzly and uncom- 
monb- warm,' according to the writer; 'tlie roofs 
and fences appeared covered with a white frost, 
but on examination it was found to be vapor- 
ous, not possessing the chilly cold of frost. 
Indeed the morn was enshrouded in awful 
gloom.' 

"This was on Saturday, but nothing seems to 
have been known at that time of the effects of 
shocks down the valley All St. Louis was try- 
ing to arrive at some explanation for the mani- 
festation. In the account of the earthquake it 
is suggested that it must have been of volcanic 
origin, as there was said to be a volcano, ex- 
tinct hut three years, where the river of the 
Osage Indians joined the Missouri. 

"Geologists would not be at all surprised if 
there w'as a recurrence of these earthquake 
shocks up and down the valley. The country 
south of St. Louis and down near New Bladrid 
is known as a 'weak-spot.' It is one of three 
that are known to exist in the earth's crust on 
American soil. San Francisco and vicinity has 
one and the Atlantic Coast in the neighborhood 
of New Jersey has the other. Seismologists 
claim that sooner or later there will be a shift- 
ing and a settling- of the earth in these 
localities. 

"Never a year passes that there is not one 
or more little quakes in the sunken lands of 
Missouri and over in Kentucky and southern 
Illinois. These no more than rattle the dishes 
in the cupboards or set the chandeliers to 
swinging, but they are Indications that all is 
not yet serene in the subterraneon depths in the 
lower valley. 

"Seismologists never tire of studying the 
great quake of New Madrid. Its effects are 
almost as plain today as they were 100 years 
ago. The sink-holes and lakes, the submerg-ed 
forests and the great cracks in the earth make 
plenty of material for the student. The only 
reason for the sligui loss of life was that there 
were but few inhabitants in that section at the 
time. 

"The earthquake was the cause, one cause at 
least, of the little corner of Missouri sticking 
down into what might have been Arkansas. 
After the first great shakings the people fled 
from the quivering neighborhood. With one ex- 
ception. "There was one strong-minded citizen 
who refused to go, and maintained that he 
wished to be considered and was in fact a 
citizen of Missouri. This was at the time when 
the boundary line was being fixed. He had his 
way, even the compromisers w^to fixed the line 
realizing that he was not a man with whom it 
was possible to compromise." 

Again in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of Sun- 
day, July 14th, 1912, Dr. W. J. Mc&ee, who 
foretold the San Francisco quake and warned 
Alaska EIGHT years ago of the now ACTIVE 
KATMAI VOLCANO, savs the GREAT NEW 
MADRID QUAKE WILL RECUR. He gives 
near a full page on the matter and if you care 
to you can look it up. I do not wish to re- 
print it all here. I only call attention to it on 
account of the prominence of the author. Prof. 
McGee having made a report for the Govern- 
ment on the Charleston, S. C, earthquake of 
1886. 

Reading all these accounts — descriptions of 
the great quake of 1811-12, predictions of the 
recurrence of it by such prominent men as 



Shaler and McGee, records of other great 
quakes which show activities about every cen- 
tury, and the real demonstrations that have oc- 
curred since we have been in the country, 
make you feel as though you were living 
on the edge of a gravel bank where they were 
caving off the bank to get at the gravel and 
some giant hand was picking away to throw the 
cave — small particles always fall off at first, 
which would correspond to the tremors and 
light shakes we have here every once in a 
while — but when he has enough dug out, you 
know, down goes the cave. In 1898, I am told 
by several people, they had a very severe shock. 
Monroe Dinkins and Samuel Marl, of Matthews, 
Mo., gave me an account of their experience 
with it. How it started the pumps to flowing 
and the ditches running, although it was in a 
very dry time. Mr. Marl told me of how he 
was standing on one of these sand blows in the 
east swamp, along a cypress slough, and when 
the large cypress trees began to thresh around 
he just did not know what to expect. Mr. 
Dinkins told me of how they tried driving a 
team of mules about nine miles and how it 
took them all day to do it, for every time the 
earth would tremble the mules would stop. 
Now these are reliable people and I would sug- 
gest that did you come down to this country on 
a prospecting tour that you take time to visit 
with some of these older citizens that are not 
interested in selling or showing lands. 

Now, dear friends, it is not only -earthquakes 
and the history of this one that I wish to place 
before you, but my experience in this country 
and with its people, and as I kept a daily 
record, I feel that I am in a very good position 
to give it to you. All the way through you 
will see that I am not trying to keep you out of 
this country, but trying to impress on you the 
advantage it will be to you if when you do 
come that you either rent and farm for a year 
or work for somebody a season. 

After seeing this country for the one day — 
April 19th, 1909—1 returned home, to Bluffton, 
Indiana, reported to the family how good the 
country looked to me and began to figure how 
to get into something down here. Mr. Gabriel 
T. Markley of the firm of Hale & iNIarkley, real 
estate agents of our town, then representatives 
for the Smith Bros. & Co. Land Company, of 
Sikeston, Mo., made me a very good verbal 
offer, that was this: if I would locate down 
here and assist in getting other people to buy 
here, that they would give me one-half the 
commission they received on all sales they 
made down here. That looked pretty good to 
me, so I visited with some of the people that 
I thought could be interested in lands down 
here and on the 7th of June, 1909. I landed in 
Sikeston and stayed nere till the afternoon of 
June 8th, when !• went down to Lilbourn, twenty 
miles south of Sikeston, where the real new 
country is. Lilbourn at that time was the 
Mecca of all newcomers, for it was and is the 
geographical center of New Madrid county, and 
was strongly talked of for the county seat, and 
people coming in from the older northern coun- 
tries know what it means to get located in the 
prospective county seat. Well. I stayed here 
until June 12th and visited with the people — 
took walks into the country along the railroads 
— too wet to get into the woods — rode up and 
down Little River with a Mr. Welshans. pro- 
prietor of the hotel of the town, and told him 
of how I was down there looking for something 
to do — would like to get on a farm, at which 
he laughed and told me if I wanted to farm 
that I wanted to get out of there, that it never 
became dry enough in that locality to grow a 
cro)i, and I rather believed him, and when I 
told Mr. Cox, of the Smith Bros. & Co. Land 
Company, that Mr. Welshans was rather knock- 
ing on the country as a farming country, he 
said that I ought not to pay any attention to 
the hunters and fishermen, as they did not 
want to see people clear up the lands around 
there, for it would spoil their sport. Well that 
looked reasonable to me, but I did not stay 
here long. On the 12th I went back to Sikes- 
ton and spent Sunday with two brothers from 
our country, Messrs. Ben and Fred Moser, on 



their farm about six miles southwest from 
Sikeston on Pharris Ridge — places are located 
in this country by ridges and ditches; there is 
Sikeston Ridge, Big Ridge, T^anders Ridge, 
Couters Ridge, Round Ridge, Hurricane Ridge, 
etc. etc.; and ditches either go by their num- 
bers either east or west of the Sikeston Ridge 
or the particular slough that tlicy were dug to 
drain, as Ash slough, Otter slough, etc. Had a 
pleasant Sunday with the boys talking over the 
farming possiliilities of the country, etc.; then 
the following morning across the country to 
Matthews and through some very wild and new 
country — up the Frisco railroad to Sikeston — 
and wrote home of the fact that I had not as 
yet found an occupation and my views of what 
I thought would be profitable to work at In 
connection with prospective showing of lands 
as outlined with i\Ir. Markley; and as one of 
them was keeping a hotel, and knowing that 
Mrs. Welshans would sell her hotel at Lilbourn. 
I decided to ro back there and visit a few day§ 
more. So on the 17th of .June, 1909, I went back 
to Lilbourn and wrote Mrs. Studataaker what it 
would cost us to buy this hotel did we decide 
to do so. I was much pleased when I received 
a letter from her telling that we could get the 
money to buy it, and as it figures largely in 
our experience in Missouri — the fact that we 
were operating on borrowed capital — I will just 
explain here that Mrs. Studabaker's brother, 
H. D. Cook, secured for us what money we 
needed. I insisted that Mrs. Studabaker pay 
the country a visit and see the country — look 
over our prospective occupation — so on the 23rd 
of June, 1909, she came to Lilbourn and we 
stayed here till afternoon of June 24th, when 
we went to Sikeston to look over the farming 
country in that locality, as Mr. Cook had ex- 
pressed himself as though he would feel we 
were making a safer investment if we were to 
buy a farm; and although the amount of ready 
money we had — $2,800 — was small to think of 
buying and operating a farm, yet he assured 
Mrs. Studabaker that he would see us through 
if we went to farming and needed more. At Sikes- 
ton I arranged with the C. M. Smith Bros. & 
Co. Land Company to take us out and show us 
some of their land they had for sale; so on the 
morning of June 25th Mr. J. P. Cox, of the then 
C. M. Smith Bros. & Co. Land Company, but 
now of the Hoosier Land and Investment Com- 
pany, of Sikeston, Missouri, with a carriage 
and two mules started out to show us the 
country and the lands they had for sale. We 
drove out to Pharris Ridge, then south along 
Ash slough ditch to a point about one and a 
half miles south of Matthews, then we came up 
out of the wilderness onto Couters Ridge, and 
here he showed us the farm of 215 acres that 
we afterwards contracted for. It was such a 
joy to come up out of the uncleared land to 
this almost cleared farm, with a new 6-room 
PAINTED house and a great deal of growing 
corn that we sure thought we had found the 
spot, and when we learned that we could buy 
this with a payment of $2,000 down and ten 
annual payments on the balance, and that if 
we would purchase it before July 1st — this was 
June 25th — that we would get this year's rent 
(Mr. Cox said there was 200 acres of it in corn 
and rented at $4 per acre), we were interested 
at once and did not look any further. Mr. Cox 
wanted to show us some lands in the EAST 
.swamp not so far out from Sikeston, but we 
had heard that the east swamp overflowed 
every time the Mississippi river came up and 
we would not go and look at them; so we 
drove back to Sikeston without looking any 
further. To the hotel, and the next day Mrs. 
Studabaker started back for Indiana to send 
me the money to close the deal, and I went to 
our friends, Mosers, and Sunday afternoon 
Mr. Ben Moser and I drove over to the farm 
and took another look at it. We found that at 
least half of the farm was the much sought for 
black land and the other was higher land with 
some sand and between 10 and 20 ^cres of 
white oak ridge clay. About 160 acres of it 
was in corn; the rest was not put in, the rent- 
ers said, because they just could not get to it 
to do it. I took it that they meant they had 



too much work, but I afterwards learned that 
it was on account of it being too wet. Well, I 
still had the idea of buying the farm, for here 
\\as a farm witliin a mile of an elevator — 
adjoining the railroad right-of-way on the east 
— half black land and half ridge — a new house — 
rented, so I was informed, for $4 per acre cash 
rent — could buy it on ten years' time with 
small payment of $2,000 down and, as the real 
estate men held out, it was soon to go to $100 
per acre — and who would want for anything 
better. To Sikeston, June 2Sth, and on the 
29th I received draft from home for $2,800, so 
on June 30th, 1909. I signed up contract for the 
200 acres land at $75 per acre^$2,000 down and 
the balance in 10 annual payments at 6 per cent 
interest, making an annual payment of about 
$1,300 and interest. Looked like a person ought 
to make it, but as we go along will show you 
how far short I fell. Now to show you how 
important it is to look after all the little things, 
will right here make mention of the fact that 
on or near the southeast corner of this land 
there was a cemetery — I say on or near at this 
time, for land was to be surveyed and I was to 
pay for just what it measured, and I made 
mention to the land company that I did not 
want to pay for this cemetery if it fell within 
the lands when surveyed. I did not have it 
written in the contract and there was where I 
fell down, as will be shown later on, although 
I had it understood — verabally — with them. 
Now I had the land bought — an abstract was 
to be given — the lands were rented and I bought 
subject to the rental leases, none of which ex- 
pired until the first of the following January, 
1910, and it was up to me to get possession. 

For the next several days I was busy writing 
home folks and sending them circulars prepared 
by the land men; also wrote the home papers. 
Glad to say from reading these articles over 
that I confined myself to things I had seen, 
such as the raising of two crops and the long 
time for planting corn. I learned more of the 
country, as a farming country, from being here 
and trying to make crops; also of the people 
from dealing with them and seeing them deal 
with other people. Down to the farm and saw 
the renter and talked buying him out, so as to 
get possession. In this country there seems to 
be a rule if you want to get man off of a place 
you must buy what junk, mules, etc., that he 
has to get him to move, and sometimes it is 
pretty expensive. Again on the Sth of July I 
went down to the farm, saw the renter, Mr. 
Dover, and wife; visited and talked buying 
them out, but nothing doing this time; he 
hadn't found a place to go to yet and he wanted 
to know where he was going before he would 
talk sell. 

On the 11th of July Mr. Moser, some of his 
folks and I went blackberrying, and here was 
where I became acquainted with one of the 
worst insect pests, as. far as humanity is con- 
cerned, known to this or any other country, 
and that is the chigre; most people call them "jig- 
gers," and they sure are. They are a little red 
Insect and they bury into the flesh and start 
an irritation that is hard to stop. I sure caught 
my share of them that day, for I was most 
laid up from the swollen and irritated condi- 
tion of my limbs around my ankles. Should 
you go to this country on a prospecting trip in 
the spring, summer or fall of the year, you will 
do well to be careful and take all precautions, 
especially if you are easily poisoned. 

.July 12th, 1909, we measured the land — 
215.04 acres — and it was HOT enough for me to 
ever remember it, if for no other reason; but 
there was one other, and this leads me up to 
the snake question of this country — one not to 
be laughed at, for you know swamps breed 
snakes, and for a truth these swamps sure do 
their share. I do not expect that I would have 
paid so much attention to the reptile question, 
for you know I was born and reared in Indiana, 
said to be one of the greatest snake countries 
other than India, had it not been for the sur- 
veyors, but they being "Swamp-East Mis- 
sourians" — "Wampus Cats" — as all natives are 
sometimes called, and side stepping the snake 
homes like they did, rather bred a feeling, not 



of contempt for the snakes, but of respect for 
them. We were surveying along the north line 
of the land, on one of the traveled "lanes" — 
I'oads in the North — when we came to a patch 
of Jimson weeds, about waist high and cross- 
ing the road either into this patch of weeds 
or from it, was a snake track, which looked 
like the maker of it might have been a snake 
of goodly size, so as the Jine would have led 
riglit through this weed patch, the surveyors 
did not do a thing but measure over a couple 
of rods, pass the obstruction and measure back 
onto the line. Of course, I was interested in 
the measurement of the land and I asked why 
they did the side-stepping and then they told 
me that they did not take any chances with 
the snakes and advised me not to either. Wall, 
this was a new idea to me and with my pre- 
vious "jigger'' experience, which at this time 
was causing me a great deal of trouble in get- 
ting around, I rather thought that probably I 
had better l^e a little careful of Mr. Snake. I 
inquired as to the kinds of snakes I was liable 
to meet up with and was told of the Cotton 
mouth, a very poisonous reptile, whose mouth 
looks like a ball of cotton, from whence it de- 
rived its name; the Water Moccasin, also very 
poisonous and an inhabitant of these or any 
other swamps; the Spreading Adder, also poi- 
sonous and lives mostly on uplands. We have 
killed as high as six in one day in our wheat 
fields; in fact, they were so thick in our up- 
lands that we could not get our women folks 
to cross the wheat fields until after the wheat 
was cut. Tlien there are house snakes, chicken 
snakes, garter snakes and many more too 
numerous to mention. The boys and I became 
so used to them that we killed and skinned 
a great many and once when we had some 
20 or 25 tacked up on one of the outbuildings, 
Mrs. Studebaker and I were looking them over 
and reinarked how, had we known the place 
was as thick with snakes as it was, we never 
would have owned it, it would either yet be 
Mr. C. D. Matthews' or some other fellow's. 
Now while our experience with the snakes was 
more amusing than serious, yet tliat was not 
true in all cases, for I know of some cases 
where children were bitten that came near 
causing death. 

I re-print herewith a couple of clippings from 
newspapers of this community in regards to 
some other people's experiences with snakes. • 
(From the Sikeston Standard of May 31st, 1912) 

FARMER BITTEN IN HAND BY BIG SNAKE. 
A. J. Davis Was Pulling Up Stump When Rep- 
tile Jumped At Him and Held On. 

A. J. Davis, who farms three miles below 
Sikeston on the New Madrid road, was bitten 
in the right hand by a monster black snake 
last Wednesday and for several days was un- 
able to go about his work with usual alacrity. 
The reptile held on to his hand as if he were 
going to get a week's board at the time and 
Davis had some difficulty in shaking him loose. 

The snake was lodged vinder a stump. Davis 
was out in the field plowing and when he came 
to the stump, which was old and rotten, he 
thought to rid the field of the obstruction to 
straight plowing and laid a hand to the task. 
When he pulled the stump up slightly, the 
snake darted out and made one lunge, grabbing 
Davis's hand. 

Knowing that a black snake is not seriously 
poisonous, Davis treated his hand with perox- 
ide of hydrogen. His hand and arm swelled 
somewhat and some pain followed the next day. 
For its pains the snake was killed. 

A few days before Davis said he was driving 
down the road with a team of mules when a 
rattle snake over six feet long and as big around 
as a fence post crawled across the road and 
frightened his team until the mules ran away. 
When he got them pulled down and hitched 
and went back to look for the snake, it had 
disappeared in the rye field of A. A. Ebert. 

Another little clipping from the Campbell 
Citizen. 

"Will Kendall is our authority for this snake 
story, sworn to by Bert Knotts and declared 
true by several other witnesses. One morning 



last week Bert stepped out into his back yard 
and immediately was attacked by rattle snakes. 

"He grabbed a hoe and chopped snakes for 
nearly a half hour. When the battle was over 
he counted 95 dead snakes. 

"Mr. Knotts lives in Bray addition to Camp- 
bell, but is trying to get moved right away." 

We finished the surveying and for the next 
two weeks I was busy trying to buy out the 
renter and get possession of the farm and 
naturally while in Sikeston, and not very well 
acquainted, I staj'ed around the Land Com- 
pany's office. On Wednesday, the 21st of July, 
1909, Mr. Dover came in and we concluded a 
deal for his corn and most of his farming im- 
plements and stock and I was to have posses- 
sion on the 15th of August. That evening Mr. 
.Johns, the stenographer for the Land Company, 
and I drove out into the East Swamp, about 
5 miles east of Sikeston to see the water from 
the Mississippi River, rushing like a mill race 
down one of the dredge ditches and the people, 
not only of that locality but of Sikeston as 
well, who owned lands bordering on this ditch, 
or, in fact, in this swamp, piling sand bags 
on the banks of the ditch and in the low 
places trying to confine the water to the ditch 
and thereby save their growing corn. This 
was a case where the levee at Price's Landing 
gave way and it sure cost the farmers in the 
low lands a plenty in the loss of their crops. 
At this time I was told the water also overflowed 
the rock levee at Cape Girardeau and came down 
through Little River in the west swamp and 
did considerable damage along Little River. 
Sandy land, or rather sand land, plenty of water 
and a good HOT sun' is what it takes to grow 
watermelons and as this country has all of 
these requirements, there is lots of melons 
shipped from this country. Not being able to 
start my farm work for near a month, Mr. J. 
F. Cox and I purchased a car of melons for 
$110 and I started for Indiana to peddle them 
out and try and make a little of my expenses 
while waiting to get possession of the farm 
bought and make Mr. Cox a little money for 
his investment. Took them to Frankfort, Ko- 
komo, and Marion and finally closed out at my 
home town of Bluffton, but made no money 
as Georgia melons were ahead and besides I 
found out that Missouri melons had a bad rep- 
utation for being pulled too green. Visited at 
home and helped start the packing for the trip 
to Missouri, till August 8th, 1909, then off for 
Missouri, and landed in Sikeston, August 9th, 
1909, and on the way from Bird's Point, through 
Charleston to Sikeston,- had a good opportunity 
to see the crops that were destroyed by the 
recent overflow of the Mississippi River and 
the scalded corn fields was sure a sorry sight. 
Then the next day, August the 10th, 1909, Mr. 
James Smith, Sr.. of the Land Company, sug- 
gested that we close up our real estate deal 
and as I had paid down the required $2,000 
when I signed the contract, I had no reason 
to do otherwise, so in company with Mr. Smith, 
We went to see Mr. C. D. Matthews, Sr., of 
whom I purchased the land, and after intro- 
ducing me to him, the land agents left me to 
fight it out witli the old gentleman alone as 
to deal. Now here coines in the one point that 
I made mention of in the first of my write-up 
and that was the necessity of having every- 
thing down in writing and no verbal under- 
standings, as I had about my not taking the 
cemetery in as a part of the land. I told Mr. 
Matthews that I did not want to take in the 
cemetery as a part of tlie farm, that I could 
not farm that, and, furthermore, it was under- 
stood with the Land Company that it was to 
be measured out. He told me that it would 
have to go in as lands here always did trade 
that way and that would have to go in. Now 
had I have had it in the contract — written in 
— I could have recovered for the cemetery, but 
as it was I could not and, furthermore. I could 
not afford to throw up the deal for the sake 
of a half acre of land as I had bought out ^the 
renter and the folks were packing up prep'ar- 
atory to moving down and so I had to take 
in the half acre of cemetery in the farm. Now 
that cemetery was always there and afterwards 



when trying to re-sell the farm, it always 
showed up very prominently as it was in a 
verj' prominent place and while I do not know 
positively that it spoiled any deals, I know 
how I felt about it when I had to take it as 
a part of the farm and I judge that numbers 
of the people that the land companies showed 
tliis farm to looked at it in about the same 
way. On the 15th of August I took possession 
of the farm and as the corn would not do to 
work in for two or three weeks and as it was 
so fearfully HOT I had my folks wait until 
tlie 1st of iSeptember before starting, so I spent 
the time for the next two weeks "batciiing" 
it down on the farm and looking after the 
stock. Done this so the folks would miss as 
much of the HOT weather yet this fall as pos- 
sible. On the 4th of September, 1909, though 
they landed at Knoxall, our nearest station 
stop, and tlie first thing they learned from a 
family that they rode up the "lane" aways 
with was about the awful number of snakes 
there was in this country and when I arrived 
at the home on the farm that evening they 
were most seared to death over what they had 
told them. Although the next day was Sun- 
day, we unloaded enough of our goods to have 
something to cook and eat on and a place to 
sleep and the next day we finished the unload- 
ing and it was well that we did for on Tues- 
day the folks were initiated right to a Missouri 
rain and it was lucky for us that we were 
under cover for when it rains in JMissouri, it 
sure rains. Went to our farm work, as we 
wanted to put out some wheat and began 
plowing in a meadow and topping some corn 
and on the ISth of September, 1909, went to 
Sikeston to finish up the land deal and to see 
Air. C. D. Matthews, Sr., to sign up the notes. 
Now, we had contracted for 215.04 acres of 
land at $75 per acre, which amounted to $16,128, 
on which we had paid $2,000, the rest to be 
divided into ten equal, annual payments. Here 
is where I first realized what an enormous 
commission the land men ^vere getting for 
selling me this farm. The notes were made 
out in eleven notes — one of $500, one of $912.80 
and the other nine of $1,412.80 each. The one 
of $500 going to the land men to complete their 
commission of $1,075, the cash payment being 
only for $2,000. Mr. Matthews would not allow 
them to have all their commission in cash, so 
you see I paid, or contracted to pay, and did 
pay, along witli a whole lot of interest, a 
goodly sum to be allowed to buy a farm in 
this "Earthquake Zone." Now, as I had a 
contract with Mr. Markley of the firm of Hale 
& Markley, real estate agents of Bluff ton. Ind., 
that I was to receive one-half of their com- 
missions on all lands sold in this country, they 
did pay to me. on my deal and the Archie 
Cook deal, wherein he purchased 240 acres of 
land $300. So this will give you some idea, 
dear friend, what the real estate agent or 
agents are to be paid for leading you down 
here and locating you, if he does, of course. 
There is many a slip in selling real estate and 
us fellows that locate through these real estate 
agencies pay many another man's sight-seeing 
expenses. Now this is one of the things that 
I wish to impress upon you — how you can miss 
this enormous commission and will take this 
matter up at greater length when the home 
man — down here — bought a farm and comes 
into this write-up. 

We worked on at our farm work, gathering 
of the corn that I had purchased of the renter 
to get possession of the land, plowed and 
sowed wheat and as the fall days came, the 
evening growing colder, it brought inore 
strongly to mind the necessity of laying in 
winter supplies of vegetables, and as our fam- 
ily is a potato eating family, naturally when 
one of the men on the farm offered me 14 bush- 
els of nice looking potatoes for 75 cents per 
bushel. I bought them and stored them away 
for the winter. I did not know potatoes raised 
in this country would not keep, but I found it 
out — paid for more experience. Well, sir, I 
sorted those potatoes over several times and I 
know that I threw away two-thirds of them. 
I only tell you this that should you come down 



here to locate that you need not make the 
same mistake. Potatoes grow well in this coun- 
try but they are not meal.v like the potatoes 
grown in liie North. It seems there is too 
much moisture in the ground and they are 
more like what we called at home the "Muck" 
potatoes, that was potatoes that were grown 
in low, swampy places. People as a rule that 
do raise a surplus of potatoes in this country 
sell them at tlie stores just as soon as tliey 
\\i\\ do to dig and then when in need of pota- 
toes buy shipped-in potatoes. 

Kept on with our farm work, shucking corn 
and planting wheat and finished the planting 
of the wheat — 65 acres — some time in Novem- 
ber. Then on the 7th of December had a new 
experience. Mr. C. D. Matthews, Sr., the gen- 
tleman of whom I bought this land, sent his 
farm overseer or "rider" as they are called 
in this counti-y, out to see me and made me 
a proposition to sell real estate. It seemed, 
so I was informed, that the land agencies of 
Sikeston were not making what Mr. Matthews 
thought the right effort to dispose of his lands. 
You see. as I have shown you before, by the 
commission they made off of the land that they 
sold me these land agents were so to speak 
"on the make," and as Mr. Matthews was a 
large land holder and rich, he was in a posi- 
tion to and did and does dictate the terms that 
his lands MUST BE sold on and what the real 
estate agent can have for his commission. Now 
these land agents had lands that they could 
sell and get more commission on — more than 
the $5 per acre that they charged me and 
they did not show his $5 per acre commission 
lands, so I was informed, except when they 
could not sell something else, and so Mr. C. 
D. Matthews, Sr., was looking for someone to 
get buyers for his lands. Now, I had only been 
in Missouri five months and that through the 
harvest time of a fairly good crop year — had 
not had time to experience the losses and dis- 
couragements that come from the loss of some 
of your mules — hogs all dying with cholera — 
water flooding your lands and drowning out 
your crops — dry weather stunting your corn — 
smut in your wheat, etc. etc., and naturally 
I was very optomistic of the outlook to sell 
some lands and. thus make some "easy money," 
and so I wrote numbers of my friends in the 
North, inviting them down to see us and to 
move and live down here and what I thought 
they could do by buying some of this land. 
I did get ciuite a number of people from our 
country down, showed them the land told them 
what it would be bought for and of the $5 per 
acre commission that we were allowed for sell- 
ing it to them, we would refund them $1 per 
acre as they were buying it direct through us 
and there would be no home land agent to pay 
for getting them down here. Had quite a 
number of home folks down but did not suc- 
ceed in selling them a piece of ground and 
now that I have lived the near four years liere 
and learned by experience how hard it is to 
get loose from a piece of this land after you 
are tied up in it, how little it advances in 
price, even when you clear out the stumps and 
build it up with peas, etc., as we did this farm. 
We received $10 per acre more for our farm 
than we paid for it. I am truly glad that I 
was not instrumental in locating any one. for it 
is bad enough to lose what we have to without 
leading any one else into the same trap. Now 
right here I am in a position to show you why 
it is better to have lived here a while and then 
buy, rather than to come down and purchase 
direct through some of the land agencies. Mr. 
Moser, a Wells County man, and who lives on 
Pharris Ridge, near here, was interested with 
me in trying to get buyers for lands here, and 
he had a neighbor. Mr. Joseph Weedman, who 
was talking of buying a farm and was over to 
look at the farm north of mine. As we were 
authorized to sell land by Mr. Matthews, and 
as Mr. Moser and Mr. Weedman had often 
talked the subject of buying a farm, Mr. Mo- 
ser had no hesitancy in talking trade with 
Mr. Weedman on the 207 acres adjoining me 
at $75 per acre, and as it was not much effort 
to us and would have been a little "easy 



money" "picked up," Mr. Moser offered to re- 
bate Mr. Weedman $250 of our commission if 
he would let us sell him the farm. We did 
not sell it to him, but he bought it through 
another local firm of agents and we were in- 
formed that he only paid a net price of $72 
per acre for it, so you see he saved about $600 
by being on the ground and acquainted and 1 
learned further that he only had to pay the 
intei-est on deferred payments and taxes and 
did not have to make a payment on the prin- 
cipal until the payment due in 1913. which gave 
him the use of the farm for two years by only 
paying interest and ta.xes. Now to thoroughly 
impress this upon you the advantage it would 
be to live here a season before buying, if you 
would only do as well as Mr. Weedman,~ I will 
here set out what his farYn cost him and what 
mine cost me and you can figure it out for 
yourself: 

I bought 215.04 acres at $73 per acre, a total, 
of $16,128. 

He bought 207 acres at $72 per acre, a total 
of $14,<i04. 

He saved $3 per acre on 207 acres, a total 
of $621 dollars, besides he did not have to meet 
any payments on the principal for two years. 
Then there is various other reasons why it is 
better to have lived here for a season at least 
before getting tied up — you can study the dif- 
ferent locations and see for yourself where 
people are raising enough to have a hope of 
paying out some day — you can better select a 
good neighborhood and that is easily worth $10 
per acre on a piece of land as to who you are 
located up against. In some localities people 
take advantage of the stock law and let their 
mules, hogs, cattle, farm implements, in fact, 
everything run out on the road and down oui' 
lane." If you wanted to drive after night it 
was necessary for one to go ahead and carry 
a lantern to keep from running over a piece 
of farm machinery or a mule or a bunch oJ 
cattle or hogs. Worse than just letting them 
run out, some of them don't feed their stock, 
expecting them to get their living off the range, 
which in settled communities like ours, means 
the highways or "lanes," as they say. Now, 
you know and so do I that when you do not 
feed a hog or cow brute that it is not hard 
work for them to become breechy and I expect 
we would, most any of us, climb through the 
fifth wire in a barb wire fence if we thought 
we could get something to eat. on the other 
side. 

I hardly know how to make it strong enough 
to thoroughly impress it upon you the AD- 
VANTAGE to be gained, by you, in either 
farming here a season on a rental proposition 
or of working for some one before investing 
your money in land, but as we branched out 
in the neighborhood and met other people and 
listened to their experiences "in these here 
swamps," as they would say, it began to dawn 
more and more on us that we were either up 
against a hard proposition or else there was 
some of the awfulest liars down here that ever 
lived, and now looking back upon OUR expe- 
rience of near four years, my sympathies are 
entirely with those that are tied here and 
can't get away and it is for that reason I am 
trying to make this statement to you so that 
you will Stop, Look and Listen before it is 
too late. On the evening of December 23d, 
1909, Mrs. Studabal<er went with me to a neigh- 
bors — Mr. Dubois — to see about getting a corn 
Bheller. to shell our corn and only natural that 
we would stop and visit awhile, and Mr. Du- 
bois began to tell of now he had been farming 
in this section of the country for a number 
of years and how Mr. C. D. Matthews had been 
at "him to buy the farm that we had bought 
and how that he was afraid to do it because 
<'rops were not sure in these swamps — might 
look ever so nice today and within ten days 
would be drowned out and then Mr. Matthews 
would have your little roll, whatever you had 
paid down and there you was. Told me of 
liow Mr. Dover, the renter that I had bought 
out, had never made the rent off of any of the 
black land that I had bought — had drowned out 
every year. Well, my wife and I had plent5 



of food for thought on our way home. Mrs, 
Dubois had told her of how when she came 
down into these swamps she was a well woman 
and had rosy cheeks just like our daughters, 
but look at me now, this malaria and chills 
has about killed me, and sure enough she 
looked the part. But we were in for it, as 
they say down here, "we'd done bought" and 
all we could do was to fi.x up the land, try 
to make it pay and trust to the real estate 
men to .get as big if not a bigger sucker than 
we were — as to how well they succeeded, read 
on. 

As you go into a new country or a location 
v.'here the custonis are much different from 
where you were living, they seem very odd to 
you and what impressed us as one of the 
strangest things was the shooting of fireworks 
at Christimas time. The merchants lay in 
their stock of fireworks for Christmas just as 
our northern merchants would Ijuy for the 4th 
of .luly. 

Taxes in this country, as I suppose it is all 
over Missouri, are paid but once a year and 
any time up till the first of the new year, so 
on the 31st of December, 1909, I went to New 
.Madrid to pay the taxes as it was agreed when 
I bought the land as I received the rental for 
the year I was to pay the 1909 ta.xes. When 1 
asked the tax collector, Mr. Henry E. Brough- 
ton, who is serving, as I am told, his twenty- 
second year as ta.x collector, what my taxes 
were, he told me $159. I was surprised at the 
amount and asked him what made them so 
much as I was told that the ditch tax on my 
land would only be 50 cents an acre and at 
that amount it would be over 70 cents. He 
asked me who told me they would not be over 
50 cents and when I told him the real estate 
agents through whom I had purchased the 
land, he smiled and replied, "Oh, they are liable 
to tell you anything." Now taxes do not seem 
to me to l3e distributed rightfully in this coun- 
try. I will give you the idea I have gained of 
them and it might help you to decide, should 
^•ou come to this country to make your home 
or purchase a piece of property as an invest- 
ment. Property on the Sikeston Ridge, as I 
understand it, ijays no ditch tax, but the water 
that falls on this land either runs off direetly 
into the swamp lands on either side of the 
ridge, where tlie owners of these swamp lands 
have to care for it. or it sinks down into the 
earth and seeps out in these swamp land^ 
where the owners of the swamp lands must ditch 
it off. With me at this time to pay taxes, De- 
cember 31st, 1909, was a Mr. Tuxhorn, of near 
Springfield, 111., who owns something like 440 
acres of Sikeston Ridge land lying in Sec. 29. 
Twp. 25, R. 14, I believe, and he paid his taxes 
at the same time I did mine and his entire 
tax on something like 440 acres was about $72, 
while my tax on 215 acres — less than half the 
amount of his land — was $159, which as you 
see was more than twice the amount of his 
taxes, making my total taxes at the rate of 
$4 as to his one. Now it is a fact that this 
land in these swamps would not be worth any- 
thing, you could not even try to farm it were 
it not ditched. Notice I say try to farm it, 
but where the man owning the low lands has 
to care for all the water that falls or. the just 
or unjust, it does not seem right. I always 
thought that the tax proposition was one rea- 
son that the large land holders on the Sikeston 
Ridge did not care to sell their farms. 

Through the months of .Tanuary and Febru- 
ary of 1910, was busy with Mr. Moser, show- 
ing lands in our immediate vicinity and made 
some near deals, but did not sell any and 
although it hurt at that time, yet now I am 
twice glad that none of our prospectiv^e cus- 
tomers bought. One party, a Mr. Glenn Gourley. 
would have purchased but he was told that you 
could not raise potatoes in this country and 
that if you did raise any you could not keep 
them, so he backed out. Two young men, 
Messrs. Roy Wilborn and William Crosbie, con- 
tracted for 80 acres but when tliey learned 
they would have to give a TRUST deed to 
secure the deferred payments they would not 
take the land and here I wish to explain the 



10 



Trust deed matter so that you may understand 
it. I will start by copying the tiust deed 1 
gave for Uio lands I lioui^ht, whicli is as follows, 
to-wit : 

DEED OF TRUST. 

This Deed made and entered into this 3Uth 
day of June, Nineteen Hundred and Nine, by 
and between Hugh D. Studabaker and Mary R. 
Studabaker, his wife, of the County of New 
Madrid, State of Missouri, imrties of the 
first part, L.. C. Phillips of the Coun- 
ty of New Madrid, State of Missouri, party 
of the second part, and Chai-les D. Matthews 
of the County of Scoft, State of Missouri, party 
of the third part: 

Witnesseth tliat the said parties of the first 
part, in consideration of the debt and trust 
hereinafter mentioned and created, and the 
sum of one dollar to them paid by the said 
party of the second part, the reieipt of whicli 
is hereby acknowledged, do by these presents, 
.s^rant, bargain and sell, convey and confirm 
unto the said party of the second part the fol- 
lowing- described real estate, situate, lying and 
lieing in tlie County of New Madrid and State 
of Missouri, to-wit: 

"All of that part of section seven, township 
twentj'-four, range fourteen, as is lying west 
of the right of way of the St. Louis & San 
Francisco Railroad, and containing two hun- 
dred and fifteen and four-one hundredths acres 
measured. This Deed of Trust given to secure 
the balance of purchase money for lands here- 
in described." 

To have and to hold the same, with the 
appurtenances to the party of the second pan 
and to his successor or successors in this Trust, 
and to him and his grantees and assigns for- 
ever. IN TRUST, HOWEVER for the follow- 
ing purposes: 

Wliereas, Hugh D. Studabaker and Mary Stu- 
dabaker, the said parties of the first part, have 
this day made, executed and delivered to the 
said party of the third part, their eleven prom- 
issory notes of even date herewith, by which 
they promise to pay to the said Chas. D. Mat- 
thews, or order, for value received, fourteen 
thousand, one hundred twenty-eight dollars. 
Agreeable to eleven notes, as follows: One note 
for $500 due one year after date; one note for 
.$912.80 due one year after date: one n.ote for 
i?!, '11 2.80, due two j'ears after date; one note for 
$1,412.80, due three years after date; one note 
for $1,412,80, due four years after date; one 
note for $1,412.80, due Ave years after date; 
one note for $1,412.80, due six years after date; 
, one note for $1,412.80, due seven years after 
date; one note for $1,412.80, due eight years 
after date: one note for $1,412.80, due nine years 
after date; one note for $1,412.80, due ten years 
after date. All above notes bearing 6 per cent 
interest per annum from date. All the interest 
to be due and payable annually and if not so 
paid to become as principal and bear same 
rate of interest. Parties of first part reserve 
the privilege of paying part or all of the notes, 
not due, at any interest paying time, which 
privilege is granted by third party. 

Now, therefore, if the said parties of the first 
part, or any one for them, shall well and truly 
pay off and discharge the debt and interest 
expressed in the said notes and every part 
thereof when the same becomes due and pay- 
able, according to the true tenor, date and 
effect of said notes, THEN THIS DEED shall 
be void, and the property hereinbefore conveyed 
shall be released at the cost of the said parties 
in the first part, but should the said first parties 
fail or refuse to pay the said debt, or the said 
interest, or any part thereof, when the same 
or any part thereof shall become due and pay- 
able, according to the true tenor, date and 
effect of said notes, then the wliole shall be- 
come due and payable, and this DEED shall 
remain in force, and the said party of the sec- 
ond part, or in case of his absence, death, re- 
fusal to act, or disability in any wise, the 
(then) acting sheriff of New Madrid County, 
Missouri, at the request of the legal holder of 
said notes may proceed to sell the property 
hereinbefore described or any part thereof at 



puhlic vendue, to the highest bidder, at tlie 
Court House door in the city of New Madrid, 
New Madrid County, Missouri, for cash, first 
gi\ iiig 25 days' public notice of the time, terms 
and place of sale, and the property to be sold, 
1).\' advertisement in some newspaper printed 
and published in the county of New Madrid 
and upon such sale shall execute -and deliver 
a DEED in FEE SIMPLE of the property sold, 
to the purchaser or purchasers thereof, and re- 
ceive the proceeds of said sale; and any state- 
ment of facts or recital by the said trustee in 
relation to the non-payment of the money se- 
cured to be paid, the advertisement, sale, re- 
ceipt of the money, and the execution of the 
deed to the purchaser, shall be received as 
PRIMA FACIE evidence of such fact; and such 
trustee shall out of the proceeds of said sale, 
pay, first, the cost and expenses of executing 
this trust, including legal compensation to the 
trustee for his services; and next he shall ap- 
ply the proceeds remaining over to the pay- 
ment of said debt and interest, or so much 
thereof as remains unpaid; and the remainder, 
if any, shall be jiaid to the said parties of tlie 
lirst part, or their legal representatives. 

And the said party of the second part cove- 
nant faithfully to perform and fulfill the trust 
herein created, not being liable or responsible 
for any mischance occasioned by others. 

In witness whereof, the said parties here- 
unto set their hands and seals the day and year 
first above written. 

Hugh D. Studabaker. 
Mary R. Studabaker. 

State of Missouri, ■ County of Scott: SS: On 
this iSth day of September, 1909, before me 
personally appeared Hugh D. Studabaker, Mary 
R. Studabaker, his wife, to me known to be 
the persons described in and who executed the 
foregoing instrument, and acknowledged that 
they executed the same as their free act and 
deed. 

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto 
set my hand and affixed my official seal, at 
my olTice in Sikeston, Mo., the day and year 
first above written. 

A. J. Moore, Notary Public. 

State of Missouri, County of New Madrid: 
SS: In the recorder's office, I, , re- 
corder of said county, do hereby certify that 
the within instrument of writing, was, on the 
20th day of September, A. D. 1909, at 9 o'clock 

and minute A. M. duly filed for record in 

this office, and is recorded in the records of 
this office in book S at page 542. 

IN ^VITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto 
set my hand and affixed my official seal this 
day of , , J. W. Jackson, re- 
corder. 

Now this is a very radical change from what 
the rule is in securing deferred payments where 
these young men and I came from in Indiana. 
There you secure deferred payments by mort- 
.gage on the property sold and in the event of 
a foreclosure, you have a year's time in which 
to redeem, in fact you have a little chance for 
your life, so to speak, but under a trust deed, 
as you will notice from careful reading — a few 
notices — a sale and it is all over. I herewith 
copy an advertisement for a sale under a trust 
deed which will show at a glance what an in- 
ability to meet an obligation brought to the 
people giving it. 

TRUSTEE'S SALE. 

Whereas, and , his wife, by 

their certain deed of trust dated on the 

day of May, 1911, and duly acknowledged and 
recorded in the recorder's office in Scott Coun- 
ty, Missouri, in book , page , the same 

being one of the land records of said county, 
conveyed to the undersigned trustee the follow- 
ing described real estate, to-wit: (Here follows 
a copy of the description of the real estate.) 

When said conveyance was made to secure 
the payment of promissory notes spe- 
cially described in said deed of trust and which 
notes are past due and unpaid. 

Now, therefore, at the request of the legal 
holder of said notes and in conformity with the 
provisions of said deed of trust, I, the under- 



11 



signed trustee, will on day of , be- 
tween the hours of 9 o'clock in the forenoon 
and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, of said day, at 
the east door of the court house, in the town 
of Benton, Scott County, Missouri, sell at pub- 
lic auction to the highest bidder for cash, the 
above described real estate to satisfy said debt 
together with interest and cost of the execu- 
tion of this trust. Dated this — day ot 

, trustee. 

Inability to meet your payments under either 
mortgage or trust deed are wholly bad, for the 
minute you cannot come up with the cash you 
are under obligations to the other fellow and 
while my trust deed was never enforced against 
me, yet I had to put up good, hard cash to 
keep from it, or in other words, I had to put 
up more interest than called for in said deed 
of trust to keep it from being enforced against 
ine. 

Now, Mr. Moser and I were attempting to 
work directly with our home people in the 
North and trying to get them located here as 
cheaply as possible, and as I have said before, 
instead of offering some agent back in their 
home country a dollar an acre or more to get 
them down here, we told them we would rebate 
them that dollar an acre on any property we 
might sell them and so Messrs. W. P. Chipman 
& Son, who were wanting to buy a certain piece 
of property on what was known as Big Ridge, 
came to see us and wanted us to sell it to them 
and in order to do so, I went to see the owner, 
Mr. A. J. Matthews, at Sikeston, Missouri, but 
he could not let me sell them this land as 
another agent had the control of it and if I did 
sell it I would have to make arrangements 
through him, but he offered me the privilege 
of showing them lands in the East Swamp. 
Knowing that these lands were subject to over- 
flow and also that I had refused to even con- 
sider a farm in this locality when I came to 
this country, I told Mr. Matthews that I would 
not offer to sell a man a piece of land that I 
would not live on myself. These lands I am 
informed were all under water this last spring 
— the spring of 1912 — and some under as much 
as eight feet of water. 

On the 6th of March, 1910, Mr. Moser and I 
decided to go to Steelville, 111., and see the 
Messrs. Stahlberg Bros., if they would put a 
price on the some S30 acres of land they owned 
about one mile west of my home, as there was 
a party of several friends of Mr. Moser that 
wanted"^ to buy it if we could get it for them 
cheap enough, so we went from Matthews to 
Sikeston and while changing from one depot 
to the other met up with ]Mr. J. P. Cox, now of 
the Hoosier Land & Investment Company of 
Sikeston, and as he had some clover seed for 
sale and Mr. Moser and I both wished to sow 
some that spring, we talked with him about 
the purchase of it. Now, as I was short of 
money and- had purchased my land through 
their real estate agency, I had no hesitancy of 
asking him to sell me the seed on credit until 
after wheat harvest and was very much set 
back when he informed me that I would have 
to secure him in some way. Of course, friend, 
that was a safe way to do business and if 
YOU come to this country and attempt to do 
any business you will find that most of these 
people have no fear of asking you for a chat- 
tel mortgage for anything you may wish to 
buv of them, but it was quite a surprise to me 
to meet up with it light at this time and from 
this man, Mr. J. P. Cox, of whom I had pur- 
chased the farm, putting their firm in a line 
to get a commission of $1,075, less what they 
paid their foreign agents to get me down here 
and besides the other people that I might taring 
and who did come from our community and 
purchased land through their company. Now, 
they were paid all of the above commission 
on my land — $1,075 — and the credit I asked for 
was an amount less than $30. It is needless 
to say that I never asked Mr. Cox for any fur- 
ther credit. 

On the 26th of March, 1910, we sowed some 
oats to make early hay. It does not pay to 
grow oats as a crop, that is to let them mature 



and thresh them same as you would in the 
North, because the HOT weather of the sum- 
mer comes on before they are ripe and blasts 
them. Of course, should you do as I suggest, 
that is come down and farm a season before 
investing in lands, you can find cut the truth 
of this statement by trying a small acreage. 

Now farming down in these low lands where 
they are partly cleared and a great many dead 
trees yet standing, is called farming in the 
"sticks" and it is something like that I am 
sure. I mention this to show you that here is 
quite an opportunity to lose some of your stock 
for these "sticks" are usually in a clearing and 
when fire is put out they catch and some of 
them burn off, or burn off a limb, which in 
falling are liable to and often do kill an animal. 
On the 26th of March, 1910, we lost a fine 
young Herford heifer in this way, and in a 
financial sense I was glad it was not a mule. 

This country has a very low altitude. Cairo 
being 332 feet above sea level, and while the 
country we came from. Bluff ton. Ind., has an 
elevation of only 775 feet. We blamed the low 
altitude for Mrs. Studabaker's severe head- 
aches, yet we were to find out different and 
that was she was just beginning to feel the 
effects of the malarial climate.. 

As to giving you this next statement I have 
debated it with myself a good deal, whether 
to give it to you or not, but as I am trying to 
help you in every way possible to avoid the 
losses I met up with, will trouble you to read 
it over and while it may appear to you that 
it was mismanagement on ■ my part, yet you 
will have the chance to avoid a like mistake. 
We were needing more power on the farm to 
care for the crop. We did not have an over- 
abundance of money to procure animals with, 
and seeing the advertisements in the St. Louis 
papers of sales of horses very cheap, decided 
to try and get a couple of teams of mares from 
there, so with the assistance of my friend, Mr. 
Moser, borrowed $300 of Mr. C. b. Matthews 
and off to St. Louis to get them. Now, I was 
told that horses would not live in this country, 
that the summers were too hot for them, but 
as this came from people who were directly 
interested in selling mules, I did not believe 
it, but I found out different. The summers 
are too hot for horses and it cost me three of 
the four that I bought the first summer. Still. 
as I had only a comparatively small amount 
invested in them, as I would had I bought four 
mules, yet it was a loss to us, both in money 
direct and loss of production. Don't make the 
same mistake; buy mules if you want work 
animals, for horses cannot stand the heat. 

Wells County, Indiana, people still kept com- 
ing to see us and the country, and on the 28th 
of April, 1910, Mr. Herman Wiecking of Bluff- 
ton, Ind., dropped into Sikeston and the wide- 
awake real estate agent scenting a possible 
purchaser of lands, when he asked of them 
a way to get out to Hugh Studabaker's said 
they would drive him out and incidentally took 
him around past some new lands they had for 
sale. It was a little muddy out in this country 
at the time and it was amusing to hear INIr. 
Wiecking tell of their getting stuck in the mud. 
They were coming east on the Canalou-Mat- 
thews road and just east of the third ditch' the 
mules pulled the tongue from the wagon and 
left them there in the mud, but INIr. Lindley. 
who was driving, just backed them up to the 
wagon and wired the tongue in place and on 
they went. I told Mr. Wiecking that that was 
nothing and he said, "No. I guess not, for the 
fellow just gathered up the wire out of the 
wagon. Seemed like he went prepared for 
trouble like that." I told Mr. Wiecking that 
we all did. 

A Mr. Rathert, who is farming with Dr. Dun- 
away, a new member of the Hoosier Land & 
Investment Company, had a more amusing ex- 
perience with the mud than Mr. Wiecking. Mr. 
Rathert had been located here a few weeks — 
this was in 1912, however — and one Sunday he 
determined to drive down in the "SWAMPS" 
and see some of the country, so arrayed in his 
Sunday clothes and with the old gray mare 
hitched to the light, single buggy, he started 



12 



out and had just left the foot of the hill on 
the road leading down into the .swanijis west 
from Knoxall, when lie drove into a mud hole 
of large proportions and as his animal was 
hitched to the vehicle with breast harness and 
they were not stout enough for these Swamp- 
east Missouri roads, the old gray mare just 
went on and left Mr. Rathert sitting there 30 
feet at least from either solid or dry land — 
there he was, there was the oUl. gra>' mai'e, 
he had on his best bib and tucker and there 
was only one thing to do, off came the iiants 
and he waded around there in the mud on that 
bright Sunday morning and coupled the power 
to the vehicle and came out. The best way 
to go sight-seeing in a muddy time down here 
is astride a good mule. 

I would not speak of giving chattel mort- 
gages to secure accounts for supplies as I don't 
think it more than right that a man protect 
himself when he can, but as it figures out in 
the general summary of my experience with 
the people down here, I only think it right to 
mention the fact here as I go along, that on 
the 29th of April, 1910. I was called in by Mr. 
C. D. Matthews to secure him for my grocery 
account and did so by giving him a chattel 
mortgage on my wheat crop. 

On the 24th of May, 1910, lost a mule, dropped 
dead, but that is the way it goes; quite a loss 
to us but we had to stand it. Now in digging 
the grave to bury her learned something of 
the nature of the black lands. After about 
one spade down we ran into what seemed to 
be a species of iron ore and it really is. It Is 
this material that gives the water of these low 
lands such a sulphur taste, in fact, there is 
a scum raises on most all the water of this 
country if you let it stand for a little while, 
so it looks to you as though you were drink- 
ing oil. It is this scum on the water in the 
ditches and sloughs that fools people into 
thinking this an oil country and this some of 
the oil that has seeped through and come to 
the top. At least there has been no oil found 
yet in the several attempts to locate it. 

This sulphate of iron in the water might not 
hurt you but it gets most of the people and I 
know of several cases where people that left 
the country claimed that their worst objection 
was their inability to drink the water. 

I give you herewith a clipping from the Sikes- 
ton Standard of December 12th, 1912, that bears 
right on the above point. 

KEWANEE FARMERS LEAVING, TAKING 

WATER. 

Take Precautions Against Fever to Get Back 

to the Swamps. 

Jim Followell and John Hale loaded their 
household goods, live stock and chickens this 
week and with their families move to Keys- 
ville, Crawford County, where they will build 
homes for themselves. They owned no land 
here. They filled their water kegs with good 
swamp water and placed them safely in the 
car so as to have some of the life-giving H20 
to take at times when they feel the ties that 
bind to the swamps tightening upon them. It 
is said that once a person drinks of this swamp 
water and get their feet wet they are sure to 
come back. So these fellows are taking pre- 
cautions. 

Now, friend, there are numerous cures of- 
fered for home-sickness, but these fellows cer- 
tainly took the remedy with them to kill all 
of those kind of microbes that might awake 
in their system. 

To come into this country from some distance 
like we did naturally you are a stranger to 
the people and the country, its ways and its 
people's ways, but if you will start in to farm- 
ing and are trying to get along on small cap- 
ital you will soon meet up with a very dis- 
gusting practice that seems to be capitalized 
to the fullness of its possibilities and that is 
— I have no better name to call it by — the spy 
system. Everybody around you keeps tab on 
you and if you meet up with some misfor- 
tune, such as the loss of a. horse or a pig, they 
have business in town the next day, if not the 



same, to inform any one and every one that 
might have an interest in your success or fail- 
ure of the fact. Wliile to the west of us lived 
tenants on W. A. VVliite's farm, who is now 
president of the Hoosiei' Land & Investment 
Company, to the north of us a Mr. Joe Weed- 
mand, yet to the east of us lived Mr. Jimmy 
Smith, a boyhood friend of Mr. C. D. Matthews, 
and it was no unsual sight to see Mi-. Smith 
walking around and across our farm the day 
before his town days and of course we felt that 
Mr. Matthews would be informed as to how 
we were progressing whether' we went to town 
or not. As to whether these people were paid 
anything for this service or not I never learned, 
tiut all the large landlords of this country have 
regularly paid riders to keep a tab on the rent- 
ers and their progress either forward or back- 
ward. 

No doubt where you live there are cockle 
Ijurrs; I never heard of a country where they 
did not grow, but down here I learned of a 
new use for them. You know a cockle burr 
when it sprouts carries the burr up with it and 
thus tops out, so to speak, the little green plant, 
stock coming along and especially little pigs, 
gathering everything that is green, eat plant 
and burr. The burr being too hard a fibre for 
the little pig to digest and equipped with the 
hard projections that they are, set up an irri- 
tation that kills lots of pigs. We lost several 
in the month of June and in trying to account 
for it were informed by the natives of the 
cause. Now when you come to this country to 
farm and grow pigs, that is a good thing for 
you to look out for. 

In the North when a person stuck in the 
mud they usually spoke of it as mireing down, 
but here when you, your animal, wagon, corn 
plow, binder or anything sinks down, they 
speak of it as "mireing up," just why they 
use the expression I never learned, but that 
you do "mire up" there is no getting away 
from the fact. On our farm we had all the 
neces.sary kinds of -land or soil for all the dif- 
ferent kinds of mireing up, such as in the 
sloughs, in the quicksand deposits, in the sand 
blows, and sink holes. In the "sloughs" you 
could mire up most any time, in fact, it had 
to be an awfully dry time when a team or 
wagon could not find a place to sink down a 
ways. On ovir farm there is about 15 or 20 
acres of land that look like plate "B," page 
SI of the New Madrid Earthquake Bulletin, 
issued by the U. S. Geological Survey, little 
basins that hold water with an impervious 
soil between so that the water usually has to 
evaporate to get away. Now, around some of 
them there is an outcropping of the quicksand 
and when it is the least bit wet in this field it 
is no trouble at all to get a team "mired up," 
in fact, in plowing we would find patches of 
one-eighth of an acre in extent that we could 
neither get the teams to plow through or would 
we try after finding out they were too soft. 
But mireing up cutting wheat was the hardest 
thing for me to understand when people told 
me they had seen Dover work for a half day 
to get his binder going again after mireing up. 
The only idea I had of mireing up was from 
wet weather and like the Yankee I would not 
show my ignorance by asking questions, but I 
found out all right when we went to cutting 
wheat. The sand blows, being composed of 
almost pure sand, offers no foundation to pull 
a machine on and run the machinery, and the 
team simply drags the machine down into the 
sand. You can throw it out of gear and yet 
the weight of it will in some sand blows sink 
it down until it is hard to get through one of 
them of an acre in extent. Now right here I 
want to call your attention to the fact that 
this is one of the worst drawbacks to steam 
plowing in this country and were you expect- 
ing to bring a gang outfit with you, as I have 
heard some prospectors talk, it would be well 
for you to farm here a season before investing 
in either gang plow or land. Still I have seen 
it wet enough in cutting wheat to "mire up" 
not only in the "sand blows," but in the low 
spots in the wheat field. We had such an ex- 
perience cutting wheat in 1912 and when we 



13 



were done cutting the dry and high spots out 
of 100 acres we had to bacli over and cut out 
better than 15 acres of low spots where we for 
sure "mired up" in the straight cutting. 

To make a crop — "crap tliey call it here — a 
person will, if he has the least bit of energy 
left, put forth all kinds of efforts and when 
the ground is too wet to plow your corn, the 
next best thing is the hoe and this is sure the 
country of the hoe. "Chopping out" is usually 
the way it is spoken of and is one of the 
dreaded jobs on the farm, for it cannot be done 
with a team or a riding corn cultivator, but . 
must be done with the strong arm and down 
in these bottom or "swamp" lands where the 
cockleburrs grow apace, the sprouts do like- 
wise and if you do not want to clear the land 
next year, if you want to try and raise some 
corn "this year, vou must chop it out. Then 
it is a better way to get close to the stumps 
pnd cut out the weeds, and with the thermome- 
ter around the 100 mark it is for sure a HOT 
job. Try it a season before you get tied up so 
that you have to stay with it until you are 
able to sell out. 

I mentioned about the "sticks" a few pages 
back and there is one thing that these "sticl-s" 
effectually do and that is to hide the view for 
any distance and I was much amused at the 
father-in-law of Mr. Arch Cooks, Mr. Charles 
C Sixbey. He had been down for a week vis- 
iting the folks, hoed a few rows of corn and 
sweat like all of the natives do and when he 
started for home I was joking him about leav- 
ing so soon. He said he was going where he 
could see something more than the clouds go 
by and when you are back in the "swamps" 
that is really about all you do see. 

I have called your attention to a number of 
insects but I do not believe that I have out- 
lined the pestiferous flea to you in all the glory 
that they get out of their life and yours down 
here. One thing that brings them to my mind 
at this particular stage of my history is that 
I recorded in my daily record the loss of sleep 
that we were experiencing from their following 
their avocation so assiduously. They sure are 
the busy insects — work in relays and never lose 
a minute. The country of the full grown flea. 
Here they grow large enough that you do not 
have to take a microscope to see them. The 
seasons of the year are long and so is the work- 
ing period of the flea. Some people try shak- 
ing insect powder in the beds to drive them 
out. Few people keep anything on the floors 
in which they can hide, but I think you will 
agree with me, if you follow my instruction, 
to try it a season down here before investing 
in any property that the best way to get rid 
of them is to move out of the country. See if 
I'm not right. 

July 20th, 1910, one of my mares died; also 
threshing wheat this day and when in town 
the next dav one of the Land Company people 
asked me about the loss of the animal. Some- 
bodv had reported it all right. 

July 25th, 1910, we lost a fine sow from the 
heat; a neighbor, Mr. James Midget, lost some- 
thing like ten head. Pretty hot when hogs die 
right out in the open. Thermometer registered 
95 m the shade at noon and 103 in the sun. 
These are the kind of days that "boil you out," 
so to speak, and when the following wintry 
weather comes you sure feel the cold. 

Now, I was led to believe that flies were not 
bothersome in this country, that they did not 
trouble the stock like in the North and after I 
had been down here a season, found out that 
it was not the case. One of the reasons I 
think that people do not consider the flies so 
bad is that there is so many other pestiferous 
insects that are worse that it rather detracts 
from the glory of the f^y. You come down here 
and live a season and see for yourself if this 
is not about the case. Locate along one of 
these "lanes" that lead from the "swamps" up 
on the higher ground, where the poor, dumb 
brutes that have to hunt through the wild lands 
for their food come to spend the nights away 
from the "swamp" insects as far as they can 
get and see from the myriads of flies that they 



leave at \iiur homes as they pass if this is 
not true. 1 know it to be so and have no 
hesitancy in "putting you next," so to speak, 
and if you do not believe it just come down 
and see. Another thing right here as to the 
insects in the swamps, especially the mosqui- 
toes. You can go to these swamp lands and find 
a tight barn and its use is to house the mules 
in, in the summer time, to keep the mosquitoes 
from eating them up at nights. 

August loth, 1910, helped my friend, Moser, 
thresh his wheat and such a lot of smutty 
wheat as there was in this country this sea.son 
and as smut, you know, injures the berry for 
flour purposes, the milling companies were com- 
pelled to and did cut the prices on this dam- 
aged wheat from five to fifteen cents per 
bushel. Then treating the seed wheat that fall' 
for smut was tried by numerous farmers, which 
was followed up by most everybody in the fall 
of 1911 and as the wheat crop of 1912 was not 
over a half crop, there was a great deal of 
comment as to whether the treatment hurt or 
(lid not. 

Had five acres of watermelons out this year 
and as we could not eat them all, tried selling 
some of them. Hard to sell but at last did con- 
tract with a Mr. Stubbs of the Sikeston Mer- 
cantile Company to load him a car of Monte 
Ciistoes at Matthews, for which I was to re- 
ceive $70. I had to load them four tiers deep 
and I put 1,670 melons in the car. Notified 
Mr. Stubbs that the car was loaded and in 
about five days I received a remittance from 
the Humphreys Produce Company of St. Louis 
for $33.75 This is all I received off of my five 
acres of melons, other than the few we had to 
eat. Try it and see if you can figure any profit 
out of it at those figures. I never saw and 
talked to Mr. Stubbs about it as I supposed he 
knew what he was doing and although 1 could 
have used the difference between $70 and $33.75. 
yet I did not think it would make Mr. Stubbs 
rich. I never raised any more melons, and if 
I were you and went down into this country 
to farm I would go easy on the melons. 

August 18th. 1910. lost another one of my 
mares. Them that has must lose you know. 

August 20th, 1910. Along about this time 
there was a dissolution in the Messrs. Smith 
Bros. & Co. Land Company, the Messrs. Smith 
Bros, continuing on by themselves and Messrs. 
W. A. White, 'W. P. Lindley. .1. F. Cox and 
E. J. Keith retiring and organizing a company 
by themselves and under the name of the 
Hoosier Land & Investment Company. I men- 
. tion this at this time, for up to this time I 
was only tied up with one company and from 
now on until I succeeded in getting out of 
Missouri I was being looked after by two com- 
panies and they sure did it. 

Sickness, how next to death it is the great- 
est source of anxiety and worry that comes to 
the human family. So far our family, fresh 
from the North had had not much cause to 
even consider it in our daily life, though we 
were ever mindful of our eating good food, 
sanitary surroundings and everything that we 
thought of to ward against disease, but we were 
not to escape. Though it is represented to 
you or was to us that there is seldom if ever 
a case of typhoid fever in this country, yet 
on the 24th of August, 1910, our daughter, Mil- 
dred, began to have a fever and as it was yet 
in a seeming mild stage, and wanting to know 
what to do for her and save tlie expense of a 
visit of a doctor from Sikeston — they charged 
$12 a trip to our house — on the 25th of August, 
Mrs. Studabaker took her to Sikeston and Di'. 
Otis Miller pronounced it bordering on typhoid 
fever. Gave her medicine and instructions how- 
to possibly evade it and for the next four days 
we cared' for her and gave her the treatment 
prescribed, but on the 29th of August we had 
him call and so we were in for a siege of it 
and for the next month we were running a 
miniature hospital with her mamma and I tak- 
ing turns at nursing, and when they tell you 
that typhoid fever seldom if ever occurs in this 
country owing to the good water supply, that 
is if they do tell you as they did us, just re- 
member our case and the picture of clippings 



14 



that I have cut from the home papers here 
and had this plate made from. 

I am more than pleased to record here that 
the daughter was allowed to get well, but be- 
fore she was able to be up we were destmed 
to meet up with a loss by death that had more 
to do with our financial outcome in .Missouri 
than at first glance it would seem possitjle for 
it to. That was on the 21st of September, 1910, 
a telegram was received telling of the death ol 
Mr. H. I). Cook in the interurban wreck at 
Kingsland. Ind.. whc.e some other forty persons 



fields, rotted the down corn in the fields and 
in many ways added to the farmer's loss ac- 
count. The corn in our low land fields was in 
water up to the ears and that we did not lose 
more than we did was a wonder. This sure 
gave numbers of the newcomers the blues and 
a Mr. Waite who had been holding out for $88 
per acre for his land, dropped to $80 very 
quickly. 

Had to record the loss of another of my 
horses this day. 

October 5th, 1010. To the southwest c.f our 



Mr. and Mrs. Ma 
Switch have a little girl live ye»i^s old 
who IS seriously ill ' 
mouth while convales 



ith noma of the 
■ing from typhoid. 



F f 1 Jim Lee who was threatened with ty- 
" phoid fever has recovered and is again 
rthis ga(,|, at his restaurant 



I tc 



ik^'Sioii, his bee 
. with ivph.'ihl fcvtr. His 
nf th.-ir six ohi'Jren hav 
I1..1I the last i 



i-i liv.air n 
r sometime 
/ife and five 
been ill in 
one of the 



, h IJr.'ii h iviiii; typhoid also. Two 
decs di>iled the duty of attending 
the si ve;:il patients. 



|lVAKELLEli,l2, DIEO 

OF TYPHOID TUESDAY! 



Protect .voiirsclf bom typhoid 
by drinkinrr Lmiciifle ;il THE 



|Reni;iliis Taken To Washington, 
hid , !^orBuriai--Short Illness. 



^Hce I'weddle, who is now recovermg 
Ifrom a seige of typl.oid fever, will re- 
"me l,is work with Chesley Cemant | 
ICorslruclion company. This compar 
Luil.ling up the lurn out whit 
, ,0 mfield snffered a year ago. 

I i Mrs. Oella Caudry of Gillispie. 111. 
larrived home last week to visit hei 
Isister, Miss Maud Wilson, who is re 
Icuperating from 



The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. .James 
Cutrell. who live south of Sikeston. is 
recovering from a live weeks' seige of 
typhoid. T 



la Keller, the twelve-year-old daugb- 
ItiT of J. M. Keller, the well known 
farmer living west of Sikeston four 
■ 's,.died Tuesday night at 10 o'clock. 
Typhoid fever was the cause of death. 
She had been ill only a few days when 
end lame to the great sorrow of 
the parents and u host of friends who 
knew the little girl well. 

Mr. Keller and his family moved to 

this country some few years ago from 

I Indiana and have established them- 

ScoLI*^'"^? as among . the most reliable and 

.. conscientious farmers who have come 

lOr t from the older states to make the new 

soil of this country produce its bounte- 

ful crops. Mr. Keller is most favorably 

known in the community and his most 

■nt loss by death of a member of 

his family is suffered by many otVierg 

than his immediate family. 



.Mi-s Mjud Wilson is again experi- 
ming fever, after having all but re- 
overed from her sie ge of typhoid. 

Frank Lcmlcy 15. died Sunday noon | 
of typhoid fever and was buried Monday, ■' 



.^esse Greer who has be 
II of typhoid fever is still conhii 
bed. 

The little son of H. G. Kaiser whol 
has typhoid is getting along very nicely, [ 

Joe Twiddle of Bebe. Ark., 
taken down with typhoid fever whileil 
visiting the fair, is improving now and J 
will soon return home. He has been 
at Mrs. Scott's. .< .- - ''■■'■' " /'' 



lIPiiHiMPHH 

George Greathouse hns been contin 
to his bed the last week with typhoid' 
fever. 



i"j The 18-months old boy of Mr. ami 
r^ 'Mrs. John Crosno died Wednesday 

I and will be hurled today Typhoid |, J 
*" I fever was the cause of death. 

t Master Claud Billings has recov 
'red from a siege of typhoid fever* 
and will attend si hool next 



JimXee, proprietor of the Southside [ 
Cafe, is ill at home threatened 
typhoid fever. 



U J. A. Feetinbiirgher Is sick thh 
Iwoek with typlioi.l fever. 



J. W. Snively, who farmed five miles i 
I ,p°"'" °' Sikeston, died of typhoid fever 
I luesday and his remains were sent to 
I t_o.umbus, Ind., for burial Wednesday. I 
I Heleaves a wife and two children lie 
I had been here four years and wast 
I limable gentleman He was 37 vears ' 
luf age. ' * 



Miss Ida Holley who has been v«?ry I 
ill with typhoid fever for the laot | 
two weeks is much better at this v 



Mrs Leo Dumsy, living about four i 
miles west of town, and two daughters 
are in critical condition from a serious 
attack of typhpid fever. There is some 
doubt of their complete recovery at 
this time. 

Several Are HI. 
Miss Pauline Dumey, who has been | 
I waiting on the sick ather brother Leo's, 
I ever since the death of his w^fe, is now | 
I io bed at her mother's, Mrs, Magda- 
I lens Dumey, here in town, with a 
I severe attack of typhoid fever. 



iilza BilU i» improving from iyphoid. 



|, j.<r Tweldle has recovered from 

I typhoid far enough to permit of his 

I returning to Bloomfield the latter part 

of this week ^ ' 



Some Typhoid Fever Clippings. 



lost their lives, and, as he was the brother of 
Mrs. Studabaker, she left at once to attend the 
funeral. As 1 mentioned in the beginning of 
this history, that Mr. H. D. Cook had made it 
possible for us to purchase this land, naturally 
his taking aw^ay put us in the position of it 
being necessary for us to close up our venture, 
as it was, virtually, a partnership affair. How 
we succeeded and the help we had will appear 
as we go along. 

October 3d, 1910, we had one of those rains 
that the old timers like to remember and talk 
about and real estate agents and land men like 
to forget. Records from Cape Girardeau give 
it as nine inches — local people gave it as six 
and eight inches. Anyhow, it was lots of water 
and it put most everything afloat. It sure 
spoiled all the pea hay that was curing in -the 



home there was a cypress slough and the big 
rain sure filled it to overflowing and awakened 
all the frog population. Hearing such a noise 
on the morning of this date in that direction 
we could not make out what it was and I went 
to investigate, with the results that I found it 
was made by the thousands of frogs in the 
slough. 

A gentleman who was working for us in the 
fall of 1912 and who had been at work on one 
of the dredge boats. Mr. J. T. Scott, tells a 
frog storv that has a good deal of bearing on 
this country. We were speaking of the malaria 
and chill conditions living on one of these 
dredge boats and naturally being in the swamps 
all the time and he said, "Yes, there was lots 
of malaria and chills down there, for three frogs 



15 



could not live a year there, unless two of them 
were doctors." 

On the 27th of October, 1910, the Smith Bros. 
Land Company of Sikeston had a prospective 
buyer liere for the farm and they asked him 
SllO per acre for it. (Note the price asked.) 

On the 30th of October, 1910, the Smith Bros. 
L.and Company liad a prospective buyer here in 
the person of a Mr. Emerick of Casey, 111., and 
Mr. Eniericlv stopped at Matthews and besides 
looking over the lands in this community, he 
worked on several of the farms around in this 
neighborhood, learned what they were making 
in the way of crops, what the owners were to 
get for their lands and what the real estate 
agents were to get for them. To the best of 
my knowledge, Mr. Emerick, or his father, who 
visited the country some time in the following 
year, never bought any southeast Missouri 
lands. Don't forget what I have been teUing 
you all along, before 5'ou buy in this country 
either farm a year on a rental proposition or 
worlt for someone a season. 

December 4th, 1910, Mr. W. A. White of the 
Hoosier Land & Improvement Company brought 
a Mr. Bond, said to be from near Memphis, to 
see the farm and Mr. White was afi*aid before 
they started out to look at it that Mr. Bond 
would not buy as there was so much SAND 
on the farm and Mr. Bond was afraid of sand 
land. Mr. Bond did not buy. 

December 20th, 1910, sold corn for 40 cents 
per bushel and not very much of a crop at 
that. Will give complete gross receipts in gen- 
eral summary at end of booklet. 

December 31st, 1910. Boy home from helping 
a neighbor haul off corn laid vip with boils, 
"risings" they call them in this country, and 
I guess the name fits all right. While I have 
not had the chills myself in this country, I 
have shed enough poison by the "rising" way 
to suit most anybody. You see you cannot help 
breathing tliis malarial poison in the air and 
drinking it in the water and you must get it 
out of your system sonae way, if not by taking 
its antidotes such as ciuinine, strychnine and 
arsenic or their combinations as put up in the 
many different brands of chill tonics that are 
sold in this country you get rid of it by boils 
or as they say "risings" and many do the 
people have. One Indiana person. Ben Prouty, 
told me in the fall of 1912 he had had 56. 

January 7th, 1911. A wet time. Our boys 
with the Narx boys, who were working for us, 
went to town and laid in a supply of gum 
boots. Twenty-three dollars' worth. 

January 12th, 1911. Smallpox in the com- 
munity. Our nearest neighbors, Samuel Green- 
lee and family, had the smallpox and sucli a 
thing as health officer, quarantine, etc., is not 
known down here in the country districts. We 
quarantined ourselves and glad to say we 
passed through the epidemic and have no marks 
to show for it. 

Now, a railroad stock that does not pay a 
dividend, a business that cannot meet its run- 
ning expenses and show a little interest on the 
investment and a farm that will not pay its 
taxes, the living of the man that works it and 
at least a fair portion of the interest on the 
mortgage, or I should say in this country, the 
trust deed that is held against it, is a bad thing 
to be tied up to, well, we were tied up to the 
latter and trying to get loose, but while trying 
to get loose the above enumerated expenses 
had to be met and right along about now, 
February, 1911, the man that held the TRUST 
deed, Mr. C. D. Matthews, was getting rather 
Insistent about that interest. He knew that 
our backer, Mr. H. D. Cook, had been taken 
away by that Kingsland Interurban horror, 
that we were working overtime with the real 
estate agents to try and dispose of the property 
for us and let us out with a little something, 
but get the interest and finally we did suc- 
ceed in getting the folks back home to put 
up $5.50 more for us and so we were given a 
little longer lease of life, and with the $111.42 
that I had left from the proceeds of the farm 
from the crop year of 1910, after paying the 
taxes and running expenses, making a total 
payment at this time, February 7th, 1911, on 



interest of $661.42. 1 will give a summary by 
years in the back of the booklet of the gross 
receipts, taxes, running expenses, etc. 

Now, don't forget as you read along that if 
you follow my suggestion you will either rent 
for a season down here or work for somebody 
Ijefore you invest your "little roll" or big one, 
for that matter. Should you fall in love with 
the country, there will be yet time to pick one 
of the :nany bargains in land and should your 
experience be somewhat like mine, you will be 
yet untied and ready to travel. 

On the 5th of March, Messrs. Smith Bros, 
had a party of land men to see the farm and 
they talked and acted as though they were well 
pleased with the land and might buy. So, when 
Messrs. Smith Bros, sent out for Mrs. Studa- 
baker and I to come in the following evening 
and sign up a contract, to say that we were 
happy hardly expresses it. We went in with 
one of their firm ready to sign the contract but 
we found it was an option that they wanted 
signed. They just wanted us to put them in a 
position so tliat they could close up the deal 
in case these parties did buy. I will here in- 
corporate the contract and you can read it 
as well as I. 

"Sikeston, Missouri, March 6th, 1911. This 
is to certify that we the undersigned, Hugh D. 
Studabaker and Mary R. Studabaker, his wife, 
of their own free will and accord do this day 
option to C. M. Smith Bros. & Co., of Sikeston, 
Scott County, Missouri, all of our following de- 
scribed real estate lying, being and situated in 
New Madrid County, Missouri, upon the follow- 
ing conditions, to- wit: That said C. M. Smith 
Bros. & Co. push the sale of our land so as 
to net us Eighty-five ($85) Dollars per acre, 
and it is further agreed that said C. M. Smith 
Bros. & Co. pay all their own expenses while 
pushing the sale of our lands, free of charge 
to us. We also further agree and do hereby 
bind ourselves to make warranty deed and fur- 
nish perfect abstracts for whatever amount the 
said C. M. Smith Bros. & Co. sells our lands for 
over the Eighty-five ($85) Dollars per acre net 
to us. We also agree to accept one-half iVz) 
cash, balance on terms to suit the purchaser 
with six per cent interest from date of the 
deferred payments as set out in the deed of 
trust. Said land is described as follows: All 
that part of the south half of Section 7, Town- 
ship 24, Range 14, as is lying west of the right 
of way of the St. Louis & San Francisco Rail- 
road, and containing Two Hundred and Fifteen 
and Four One-Hundredths measured acres. 
And it is further agreed that C. M. Smith Bros. 
& Co. have- their purchasers to pay all taxes, 
ditch taxes and special assessments falling due 
against all of the above described land for the 
year of 1911 and thereafter. And it is further 
agreed and understood that we the undersigned, 
Hugh D. Studabaker and Mary R. Studabaker, 
his wife, are to pay Six ($6) Dollars per acre 
cash rental for the year of 1911 on the entire 
above tract of 215.04 acres for the use and rent 
of same for year of 1911. Should C. M. Smith 
Bros. & Co. sell this land during the life of 
this contract, which is ninetv (90) days from 
this date, or until June 6th, 1911, at 7:30 p. m. 
of that day said $1,290.24 cash rental is to be 
discounted at six per cent interest for the un- 
earned rent to January 1st, 1912, and is to be 
deducted from the above $1,290.24 and the bal- 
ance applied on the purchase price of said land 
herein described. 

We also agree to pay all ditch taxes and all 
special assessments against all of the above 
land for the year 1910 and all prior years there- 
to. "We also agree to give C. M. Smith Bros. & 
Co. ALL over the E'ighty-five ($85) Dollars per 
acre net to us which they sell our land for. 
Witness our hands: 

Hugh D. Studabaker. 
Mary R. Studabaker. 
C. M. Smith Bros. & Co. 
By J. E. Smith, Sr. Manager. 

Now, you have no doubt read the contract 
and you will wonder why we would offer to 
take $85 per acre and then be dissatisfied with 
our deal. To fully appreciate our position, of 
course, you would have to have experienced it. 



16 



We did not want to take less than $90 net to 
us when called upon to sign the above option 
but it was held out to us by this land company 
that tliey could not get more for us, but if 
they had it at that price without a doubt they 
could close at once with their customer that 
they had just had out there and WE wanted 
to close up the matter and get out and so we 
signed at the $85, and as to what good it done 
us signing up will develop as we go along. 

On the 8th of March I received a letter from 
the Farmers' Supply Company to come in and 
secure them for my store account, and on the 
next day I went in; you see, Mr. C. D. 
Matthews takes no chances on a loss, for, as 
he says, "You might die, you know," and if 
he has your realty safely tied up with a TRUST 
deed and a CHATTEL. MORTGAGE on ALL 
your personal property there is not mucli chance 
that should you die that your family will get 
away with anything. Well, as I said, I went in, 
and about the first question asked was, "How's 
your wheat?" and then, as I had no objections 
to protecting him fully — not meaning to TRY 
to beat anyone — I gave him chattel mortgage 
on wheat crop, what mules that were not al- 
ready under mortgage and the corn crop that 
we hoped to grow this season, and all to pro- 
tect his store for what supplies I might need. 

Now in this country there is a fashion to 
have the private offices of the bank out in the 
front lobby, and as Mr. Matthews is rather 
hard of hearing it is necessary to talk rather 
loud to him In making a deal, and everyone 
that comes in HAS to hear your business, 
whether you want them to or not. and it is 
rich food for the curious ones; and I remember 
that on this particular occasion I was very 




"Mired Up." 



much put out that I had to talk my affairs 
before some very curious people that were not 
slow in talking it over the country. I was 
not ashamed that I had to borrow money, but 
you know that as a rule you do not care to put 
your financial affairs in the daily papers. 

As I have shown you, I purchased this farm 
of Mr. C. D. Matthews, Sr., and I bought my 
supplies at the Farmers' Supply Company, 
which was his store. I sold my grain to the 
Scott County Milling Company, in which I was 
informed he owned the controlling interest, and 
as he said to me at one time we were in part- 
nership on that deal down there — meaning the 
farm — and now as I needed some more mules 
on the farm he handed me over to his nephew, 
Mr. A. J. Matthews, to supply that need, as 
Mr. A. J. Matthews was a mule dealer. Then 
on the 1st of April, 1911, I purchased of Mr. 



A. J. Matthews a team of mules for $450, giving 
as surety them and another team worth as 
much. From all this you will see that in a 
business sense I was in with the Matthews. 

When you first come into tliis country from 
a northern country it is usually a season before 
the malaria begins to affect you, and when it 
does begin on you it is usually with a dull head- 
ache, which was particularly true in Mrs. 
Studabaker's case, and from a headache once 
in a while they soon multiplied until if she es- 
caped a week without a severe headache she 
thought she was fortunate. 

April 15. 1911. — Along about this time the 
roads were particularlv bad, and while the 
picture of our being "mired up" on the 18th of 
July with a small load of groceries explains in 
a way the BAD condition of the roads, yet 
there are other things t.^at concern the roads 
that I mention here. Tlie roads or "lanes" of 
this country are what you might call a kind of 
"catchall." Uusally if there are any stumps in 
the field that you don't have the time to make 
into a heap and burn, or if you are not dis- 
posed to burn them, haul them to the fence and 
throw them over into the road. If there is 
a wet spot in the field and it is at all possi- 
ble to drain it into the road, do it. 

Should the waters in the road show a tend- 
ency to run into your field, levee them out. 
Turn your stock into the roads — leave your 
farm implements set out in the road, but in no 
way ever improve them. The last year I was 
in this country — 1912 — I took it upon myself 
to look into the road improvement work of the 
country. There were some very bad mud- 
holes in our vicinity and my boys and I re- 
paired them, did what would have cost about 
$17.00 to fill them up, and, not wanting to look 
small, I did not at once file any bill for the 
work until I was informed that I would be 
taxed for road improvement, so when I paid 
my land tax I asked the Tax Collector if I 
was assessed a road tax, and he informed me 
that I had to pay about $15.50 road tax. I paid 
it and then filed my bill with the Road District 
Commissioners for my labor, but as yet have 
not received it. There is a wonderful oppor- 
tunity for road improvement in this country, 
and if you go down there either for a season 
or to locate permanently you can be of a great 
service to the whole people by repairing and 
building and draining roads. 

No better practical illustration of the fact 
that "The People Pay the Freight" could be 
set before you than this showing and selling 
of real estate as carried out in this "New 
Madrid Earthquake Zone of 1811-'12." Drop 
off in any of these towns down here — drop a 
word about buying land, and you are whirled 
out to see several pieces of it. 

Some of these parties are sincere — some of 
them are out for a rest at other people's ex- 
pense, and some of them, so it appeared to 
us, were out on their honeymoon trip. Of 
course they would be brouglit to the home on 
the land that was being shown you and you 
would be allowed — or rather expected — to tell 
your little story of the country and how well 
you liked it, etc., but — (then why you wanted 
to sell). Now if you go to this country and 
take a part in this sightseeing and buy through 
any of these agencies, you can rest assured 
that you are not only paying for your ride, but 
your proportionate share of all the other fel- 
lows, and if you take my advice and either rent 
in this country for a season or work for some 
one before dealing for land you will have the 
opportunity of seeing that what I outline to 
you is true. 

The upkeep of automobiles is immense, and 
in this country, owing to road conditions, both 
kinds of conveyances have to be kept, which 
practically doubles the expense, and — "The Peo- 
ple Pay It." Try and dodge it. 

May 14, 1911.— Along about this time OUR 
financial condition was seemingly the talk of 
the country. We wanted to sell out and save 
our little "roll." if possible. The real estate 
agencies wanted to sell it and make their $10 
to $20 per acre commission; they were showing 
up the farm quite often. This naturally had 



17 



the subject in our immediate neighborlidod at 
fever heat, and as Mr. White, President of the 
Hoosier Land and Investment Company of 
Sikeston, controlled the farm to the west of us, 
when he called to see about the progress of the 
work here he talked our conditions over with 
his tenants there, and they had the nerve to 
take exceptions to our ways of doing, even to 
telling us wliy we did not succeed, as JNIr. White 
said "We would never be able to pay out on 
the faini if we had lo dig it all out of the 
land; tliat the way they met their payments, 
they sold lands and made it out of their com- 
missions." 

Now if you are figuring on locating in this 
country to make money on either a limited 
capital or a large capital, it might be well 
for you to make a careful investigation before 
so doing. Take this little work as a guide; if 
you find it true, tlien I have done you some 
good; if you find it otherwise, I trust you will 
feel that 1 only delayed you a little. 

May 2S. 1911. — Thermometer showed at noon 
100 degrees in the shade, at 1 p. m. 103 in the 
shade and 113 in the sun, and in this low alti- 
tude. 332 feet above sea level and such a 
humid atmosphere, it was almost unbearable, 
'then we had these HOT spells nuinerous times 
throughout the season, for on the 4th of June 
it was 100 degrees in the shade, on July 2d it 
was 101 degrees, July 3d 101, and July 4th 
104; on Aug. 8th it was 100 in the shade and, 
while the temperatures did not run this high 
in the meantime, yet It was awfully hot and 
dry weather. I note on the 17th of June we 
had the first real rain for 48 days, so when 
anyone tells, you that the heat is never ex- 
cessive, that there are always rains when need- 
ed, just remember this part of my record, for 
I kept it day by day for my own satisfaction, 
and now I am giving it to you without any 
great cost to you, trusting you will profit 
thereby. 

June 2, 1911. — Now I know that hogs die 
with hog cholera wherever hogs are raised, but 
what makes the disease more easily communi- 
cated in this country is the fact that, owing to 
the stock laws permitting all stock to run at 
large, the sick hogs wander up and down your 
"lane" and, while you may be ever so careful 
to keep your stock up and feed it, yet the 
danger exists from the animals in the lanes, 
and on this date I first heard of the disease 
being in the neighborhood. And on the 23d of 
June I lost my first hog out of a bunch of 45 
and until the 15th of September buried 36, 
leaving me 9 hogs. It was general over the 
community. You might wonder why there were 
not some of us advanced enough to try vaccina- 
tion, but to get the serum was the question. 

It is the pride of most every farmer in 
"Swamp-east," or was, that he is never both- 
ered with clods, but this conceit, if that is 
the right name for it, was all taken out in 
this corn season — that is, the corn . season of 
1911 — wlien clods was the prevailing condition 
of the land. 

June 6th, 1911, rolled around, but we were 
still the possessors, or in charge of the farm. 
The Smith Land Co.'s contract expired this 
day, and. while they had led us to believe that 
we would be sold out sure by this time, yet 
such was not the case, and we had many anx- 
ious moments before we were. 

June 8, 1911. — To Sikeston and made settle- 
ments. Sure, there was a lot covered by that 
short, terse statement. To make settlements, 
as a rule, you must have some money, and to 
get that money to make settlements we had to 
and did make some real sacrifices. Before 
coming to Missouri we had invested a sum 
in a hotel property in a northern Indiana 
city and it gave promise of large returns, but 
we had to and did sell it to get money to pro- 
tect our Missouri investment, and, while it did 
give us a longer lease of life on our invest- 
ment down there, yet it cut us off from par- 
ticipating in the "cutting of the watermelon," 
so to speak, in connection witli the other in- 
vestment. Now. what were these accounts in 
.'-!iker.ton tliat were so troublesome? Well, one 
was brought about in this way: I bought a 



team of mules — old ones — of Mr. E. J. Keith of 
the Hoosier Land and Investment Company; 
one of them died and I sold the other one 
back to Mr. Keith, leaving me owing him about 
.$45, for which I gave him my note and a chat- 
tel mortgage on a cow. The note was due. 
Mr. Keith, needing his money for house fur- 
nishings, had traded the note to the Way Fur- 
niture Company, and Mr. Way was going to 
collect it, and I was mighty glad to be able to 
get the money to pay it without further costs. 

Another pressing claim was my grocery ac- 
count — now, mind you, I was doing my dealing 
ALL with the Farmers' Supply Co., and they 
held a mortgage against all my crops, and I 
was fully tied. Now, you cannot run a farm 
without supplies. I was paying my help in 
groceries and we needed a few for ourselves 
also, and this was an ideal time to try a fel- 
low out to see if he could raise any funds, and 
I was mighty glad I could raise them, even if 
I did have to sacrifice to do it, and by paying 
a part of my grocery account and leaving the 
chattel mortgage stand against all I hoped to 
raise this season, I was able to continue to get 
supplies. Now, read this over again, friend, 
and when you go to "Swamp-east" Missouri to 
farm on limited capital remember what I have 
here told you and be careful how you tie your- 
self up, for your best friehds and business part- 
ners (Mr. Matthews had called it a partner- 
ship between us) sometimes will try to settle 
with you when you are close vtp. 

July 23, 1911. — Right on threshing day our 
eldest boy took sick with malarial fever and, 
besides his suffering and care to nurse him, was 
deprived of his help at this, the busiest time of 
the season's work. Called doctor from Sikeston, 
and they sure know how to charge $12 a visit. 
In going into a new country, did you give 
yourself a chance to observe their ways and 
customs, hear their conversations among them- 
selves, you will learn more than it would be 
possible for anyone to tell you, no matter how 
hard you were trying to find out everything 
to your advantage. 

I have in mind a conversation that took place 
between a couple of tenants' families one morn- 
ing and will give it here, just as I heard it, 
other tlian different personal names. 

At this time of year — August 1st — just when 
malaria, chills and fever are getting a real good 
hold for the season, as a rule, then such con- 
versations as this are quite common, and they 
do not confine themselves just to the tenants 
on the farms, either. 

"Hello, Mame, how's th' old man?" 
"Oh, he's all right." 
"How's the rest of th' folks?" 
"Oh, they're all right. How're yure folks?" 
"Oh, they're all kicking, but Mam's got th'ir 
chills." 

"That's tew bad; is she doing envthing fur 
'em?" 

"Yep, she's gittin' better naow, since she's 
take'n Thedford's Black Draught for the Liver." 
Malaria, chills and ague, as we all know, are 
products of swamps, stagnant w^ater and poor 
or insufficient drainage, and I fear will be a 
prime asset of this country for years to come. 

Until a way is found to keep the old Missis- 
sippi from covering this country, in part, at 
least, once or twice each year with back water 
and the sloughs and other low places drained 
other than by evaporation, a person or family to 
stand this climate needs either to be immune 
to the malarial, ague or chill germ, or able to 
withstand the effect on their constitutions of 
the many antidotes for those poisons, such as 
arsenic, strychnine, quinine or their many com- 
binations. 

Aug. 7, 1911. — Just to show you the wide 
range of prices that a farm can be bought at 
in this country, Mr. Matthews informed me that 
he had tried to sell my farm to a gentleman — 
Wade Sitz — for $80 per acre. Now, we had cut 
our expectations down to $85 per acre net to us, 
so that the land companies might be able tr. 
find a buyer for the property, and they were 
wanting and asking all the way up to $105 
lier acre for it. and here wae Mr. Matthews 
liimself offering the farm to a prospective buyer 



18 



fur $.sii, wiik-h in-ice, had he taken it, wuuUl 
liave allowed us $5 per acre for all the work 
we had put un the land. 

AuK'. 'M, llUl. — The poisons taken into the 
system in this malarious country manifest 
themselves in very different ways. Some peo- 
ple shed tills poison by the real malarial fever 
and some lose it by "risings'" and some by 
"chills and fever." and that is the way our 
youngest boy decided to pass his off, and on 
this day he shook and shook like a miniature 
earthquake, and no amount of covers seemed 
to check the "shakes." His antidote for the 
poison was quinine and calomel, and by "a 
round of medicine" he succeeded in getting 
over the chills for a time. 

Sept. 2, 1911. — As I have spoken several times 
in this narrative, stock run at large in this 
lountry, and to tell yours from other people's 
you are expected to mark them and register 
your mark. The gentleman — Mr. .Taper Dover — 
whom I bought out sold me soine cattle and 
hogs, and as they were marked by his mark 
I asked him to explain it to me, and for jour 
benefit, in case you go to "Swamp-east," I 
will give it to you here, and a number of other 
marks that I took off the register at the county 
seat, and if you do not know all about marking 
aniinals you can study up on them and not 
have to show as much ignorance on the subject 
as I did. Mr. Dover's mark was "a swallow 
fork and under-bit in the right and a slit and 
overslope in the left." Now, as to other mark- 
ings, they are practically a variation of the 
above. 

October 5, 1911. — To show you the great care 
some people will take to see that they lose 
nothing, and especially was this true with Mr. 
C. D. Matthews, on the above date he called 
me in to talk over my financial affairs with 
him, and as I had a very good prospect for 
corn, more possibly than my store account 
would amount to, and to make himself sure 
that he would get all of it applied on his ac- 
counts, he reques^ted me to and I did sign a 
note and chattel* mortgage to him for .$1,200 
against my corn crop for the interest due on 
the land notes. This satisfied him, and as 
I was not on the beat I had no objections to 
giving it. 

October 28, 1911. — It seems in this country 
that there are more pests work oh the crops 
than in more northern climates — for instance, 
there is a silk worm that works on the corn 
that spoils a great deal of the corn. We have 
so much worm-eaten corn, and naturally spoiled 
grains which animals eat, and doctors say that 
is the cause of "pellagra," that causes the 
death of numbers of animals in this country; 
and right along at this time my neighbors lost 
several valuable horses from this disease or 
from the actions of the animal when sick, which 
staggers around seemingly unable to see where 
it is going, and they call it "blind staggers," 
and when once afflicted with the "blind stag- 
gers" they seldom, if ever, recover. 

Dec. 8. 1911. — We thought sure that the out- 
come of this day's work would be the beginning 
of the end of our stay in Missouri, for early 
in the day I received word from the Smith 
Bros. & Co. Land Co. that ere the day passed 
Mr. C. M. Smith, Sr., with a gentleman by 
the name of P. B. Harcourt of Rochester, 111., 
would be out to look over the farm and that 
I should stick to the price of $100 per acre if 
I was asked what I wanted for the land. They 
came and we looked over the land, had dinner 
and visited together, and when they left Mr. Har- 
court had the understanding that whatever he 
cared to do about thfr purchase of the farm 
that he could arrange with Messrs. Smith Bros. 
& Co. Land Co. Well, he went away without 
making a deal for the property, and a short 
time after I received the following letter from 
Mr. Harcourt: 

"Rochester, 111., 1/8/1912. 
"H. Sturdebaker, Matthews, Mo. 

"Dear Sir — Mr. Smith of Sikeston was here 
last Monday and I asked him if your land could 
be bought for even money, $20,000, and he said 
he had quoted lowest price. 

"If you should care to take less than $97.50 



at any time before .March, please advise me. 
and if I have not jiurchased in the meantime 
xve might trade. V'ours, 

"F. B. HARCOURT. 

"P. S. — We have cokl weather here at pres- 
ent; 22 below yesterday a. m. H." 

Now, friend, you will no doubt gather from 
the above what there would have been in it 
for the Smith Bros. & Co. Land Co. had they 
been able to close the deal with I\Ir. Harcourt 
At $97.50 to them and $85 net to us they would 
have made $12.50 per acre, while we would 
have had $10 per acre fqr our cleaning ui; the 
farm and getting it in shape for sale. $.'0 per 
acre on 215 would be $2,150; $12.50 per acre on 
215 would have been $2,687.50 for selling it, 
to which add the commission I paid of $1,07.^, 
for being shown to the farm, would have made 
$.3,762.50 that this farm had paid in commis- 
sions in a little over three years. But this deal 
did not go through, and if you are not weary 
of this narrative by this time read on and I 
will show you how this farm paid a greater 
commission than the above when it did pass 
title. 

Dec. 10, 1911. — This is no country for pul- 
monary troubles, tuberculosis, or in plain lan- 
guage consumption, and on this date a young 
man, Gus Albright, a neighbor, passed away 
with it, and this leads up to the custom yet 
. in vogue in this country of taking the corpse 
to the cemetery in a farm wagon. Of course 
it does not matter with us when we are dead 
as to how we are taken or even laid away, but 
it does look hard to haul off your friend, broth- 
er or relative to their last resting place just as 
you would any of the stock on the farm. 

Dec. 30, 1911. — Now for your benefit, friend, 
not mine, will show you how my business part- 
ner, Mr. C. D. Matthews, held me up when he 
was fully aware that I was in his power. Hav- 
ing sold my corn and going in with him to 
settle, I turned over all I had and did not have 
enough to comply with my contract. Now to 
make it plain to you just what I mean when I 
say I was held up, I will enter into a little 
detail of my deal so you will know the facts as 
well as I. 

I bought this 215.04 acres of land of Mr. 
Matthews at $75 per acre on the 30th of June. 
1909, and on the 30th of June, 1910, was to pay 
interest on the deferred payments — I paid $2,000 
down — at the rate of 6 per cent and pay 1/10 
of the amount due on the farm. Well, I was 
not able to make this payment, and in fact not 
near all of the interest, and at this time — Dec. 
30, 1911 — I had had a very fair crop and was 
able to take up a little more than this year's 
interest, then to pay him for not closing in 
on me, which he could do in 25 days under 
tlie Trust Deed, he demanded an extra 2 per 
cent on all back payments due and unpaid in- 
terest, so instead of paying 6 per cent, as I 
had bargained in the contract and Trust Deed, 
to keep from being closed out I was compelled 
to and did pay this extra 2 per cent interest, 
amounting to at this time about $30.00. 

Now by the sale of this land to me and my 
working it, Mr. JMatthews changed a property 
that was paying him $3.50 an acre gross rental 
on whatever the tenant succeeded in getting in 
to $4.50 an acre NET rental on the entire acre-, 
age. He was relieved of the expense of look- 
ing after it, of the depreciation of the improve- 
ments on it. Being an owner and wanting to 
make the farm do all it would, I cleared off 
the timber and removed at least a thousand 
stumps; gave him all my store business, even 
bviying the groceries for my help at his store; 
sold his mil]iing company all my giain and 
paid him the interest on all the mone$ I needed 
to finance my crop, and for the privilege of 
being able to continue this arrangement to his 
benefit until I might succeed in getting some 
one to take it off my hands, at this installment 
he took something like $30 away from me. This 
was just a starter, though, as I found out later 
on, and if you continue to read this sketch of 
my experiences in the New Madrid Earthquake 
Country A'ou will find out. 

Jan. 2, 1912.— On the 1st of January, 1912, I 
had a mule note due for $469.50, given to the 



19 



Grant estate for mules I had purchased at the 
public sale held by the administrator of this 
estate in April, litll. and when I was settling 
with Mr. C. D. Matthews he asked me what 
else I had to meet besides his claims, and I 
told him nothing but this mule note and the 
one 1 owed A. J. Matthews, and tliat I would 
expect him to help me care for it when they 
became due, to which he made me no answer, 
but as we were "jiai-tners," as he had said, and 
I had made a very fair crop and turned him 
over all the proceeds of it, I did not think 
there would be any difficulty in raising the 
money to care for this paper, as I would still 
have the stock to offer as security. Well, on 
this date, Jan. 2, 1912, I went in to see Mr. 
Matthews about it, and imagine my surprise and 
feelings when he told me he could not do it, as 
he had no money to loan. Now, I had paid 



did get a little concession in the same, as I 
had the right to sell the farm myself, which 
1 did not liave in former contract. At last, 
after a couple of weeks of worry and effort, I 
had gained, as the prisoner would say, a post- 
ponement of my execution, and so I returned 
to the farm to recuperate and continue to await 
and try to help bring about the time when 
that other fellow would come along and relieve 
me of my burden. 

Now, 1 have shown you that it does get HOT 
down in this country, and as 1 kept the dally 
weather record all the time 1 am in a position 
to and will show you that it sure does get 
cold in this country also. Jan. 6, 1912, ther- 
mometer showed a temperature of 3 degrees 
below zero and snow on the ground, just like 
a northern country. Jan. 7th at 6 a. m., 15 
degrees below zero; 7 p. m., 3 degrees below. 



BIED Of PNEDHON^ '£^ff3:%^^'^'S:^.i:^V^^ 



■Esc; 



- St., 
, .scaped 

1 ateJy . ___^, 

Taken To Tennessee 

Liwle, Mjtrtle. Virfiinia- Irenheiirtr I 
daughietof Mr. and Mrs. H, G Icenl 
ttIS%- J"*' f '•'■'"'O'own r.eiehhorl,ood. 
'(Ue(\ Wednesday morning atC:30oVlo( k 



Donal Ozement, son of Mr. and Mis. 
Heze Ozement, is seriously ill with 
pneumonia. 



' pneumonia' 



r; '".■■^■="»J' ■""riling an ;;iU0Cl0(k. | Of. J rf rj, .^~^^^^^^^^^^^ 

Pneumonia was the cttU8« of death i too „. *'"">OrmZ!!^^^^ 

which rame only after the chid wa.^ ' ' l"' ""^ Of He U J ""' ^^ Mats, i 
saved from diphtheria, only to be taken <»r«Ur coun. '*»«''ng pbo-,„. 
down with imenmonia. Th.- Iitlle-cirl i Dli^n^ *'*'"»'J, la reoati^^ ^"^^^ 
«a3 two years, three months, an.f 14 " '"'*'"nonia. ''Ported H, ^^,^,^ 

da.v.ofae. The remain* were taken 
MA"'T.r'^y'.'^*""- f^' int-rnient 

I": ?l^_*'^^,J."^^'"''-e<--r came to thi. I r Orval K,n/ ," 

unfu ^. *"® or 



of 



\ evening. 



rJn ^ r^'^'t""? """*■ ^* moirths; 'county d?*"%,o' McMui„„- „ | John Alb«rt r 

the girl a father, in.ne up fr..„, (. ^ , Morliv '"■'^' took „!. Jmeu- J ^^fe. '8 Sick with « liVhf .f, ,7 

bourn Sond^ ^ 1 ""'''« >' cemetery. °' P'^^e »t the jpneunioni» "gPt«t tack of 



bourn Sunday. 

I YYill Brown, a farm hand about 30 
'years of age, married, died Tuesday 
night at Bertrand on the farm owned, 
by John Lett. Brown had just recently* 
moved to the farm and was taken down 
with pneumonia. He was buried yester- 
da> at Oak Grove cemetery 



Mi 



msMt 



,f w 



(- 



. Robert HiUeman was with his 
mother, Mirs. Louisa HWleman, of 111- 
I mo. a couple of days recently. She 
I has pneumonia. * \ - /- V '/■ ' I i 



1 J. N, Heney, age 54. died at 
Elvln*. Jan. 19, of pneumonia. He 
■had been, deputy marshal of ElVins 
a, numiber c^f times. , c' .^'. ^^, '^^ 



cemetery. 

Miss Emma H e uchan died at the h ome 1 

'of her brother; K."b. H^ui^han. Sundal 
morninKal4a m She took with a 
headache and developed pneumonia 
which lasted only a few days. The 
Horal ofTerings from friends and the 

frm^h'^M'^i-"'':* ''^^"tiful- Funeral 
tri.m the M. t. church Monday after- 
noon at 2. 30. Int.rn.ent at (5ak Dale 

■motery. 

^IP*^^' . ,,u sons. Lawrence 

««°^f""H^hn attended the -- ^11 1 "^MM - 

''"'', ^? A berrHahn. a nephew of the j „^^ ^ ^, ^^^.^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ 
eral of Albert n Monday at O'^ lously ill this week with pne.imoi 

larst named, who die? ^^„ was|^^ 

Hamburg. Th® >" ^^^^^ wa« 

tweuty years ol age ,.• /■/ V 

I aZ» to pneumon ia, h^^^^dtm^m 

' Don Well* is reported gettinp 
weii of purii 



J,*l' l"i'* '^''"Khter of Riley Mason, a 
chiMof T. M. Bugf. and two children 
'ot ivirB. ArmatronET. a widow, were very 
HI this week with pneumonia. 



■Su^da^■^&>; d,'«„^, at Flat R.ver 
. ,' Pneumonia. 



Some Pneumonia Clippings. 



him every cent I had realized from my crop, 
not even retaining enough to meet the interest 
on these mule notes, and then to be thrown 
down this way at this time did not seem right, 
but he would not let me have the money, so 
Mr. Moser and I started out to find it some 
place else, as he was on tho Tire'' wit^^ me 
to the Grant estate, and neither one of us 
wanted to be sued. I went to the People's 
Bank and explained the situation, offering the 
mules and Mr. Moser, who was well worth sev- 
eral thousand dollars, as security, but when 
they found out I was farming a farm bought of 
C. D. Matthews and did all my trading with 
him they sidestepped the accommodation by 
saying they did not have the money. Then Mr. 
Moser took a hand, and he found the money 
for me of C. M. Smith & Bro.; also they had 
me renew their option for sale of farm, but 1 



Jan. 9th, .5 degrees above: Jan. 11th, 10 de- 
grees above, snowing — an awful wind, in fact 
a regular blizzard; Jan. 12th, 6 a. m., 3 de- 
grees below and 3 inches of snow on ground; 
Jan. 13th, 6 a. m., 12 degrees below and 4 
inches of snow; Jan. 15th, 7 p. m., 2 degrees 
above; Jan. 16th, 4:30 a. m., 4 degrees above; 
Jan. 19th, 7 a. m., 20 degrees above; Feb. 3d, 
7:30 p. m., 10 degrees above, snowing and blow- 
ing a gale; Feb. 4th, 6:30 a. m., 3 degrees be- 
low; Feb. 5th, 6 a. m., 15 degrees above; Feb. 
6th. 5:30 a. m., 15 degrees above; Feb. 10th, 
5:30 a. m., 7 degrees above. As a matter of 
course there was a slight rise in temperature 
between these dates, but it was real wintry 
weather, and how the people — tenants on some 
of the farms — in the straight up and down 
board shacks, as well as the stock in the fields, 
did suffer. 



20 



.Tan. 19, 1912. — Roads — Highways — "Lanes." — 
I have had a g'ood deal to say about in this 
booklet, and pardon me coniing batk to the 
subject, but if you so down there to live for 
a season, or work for some one a year, as 1 
have suggested to you that you do before in- 
vesting: in a piece of land, you will not wonder 
that they are on my mind to such an extent 
that I can hardly forget them. 

Well, us Northern people had taken so man.\' 
exceptions to the honible ccmditions of the 
roads, and how a Northern farmer who had 
been used to gravel or stone roads would pa>' 
more for lands did he have a good road to 
travel over, and this seemed to break throug'h 
the moss, and so along the King's Highway for 
a distance of 10 miles and 1.000 feet south of 
Sikeston they organized a Road District for 
the improvement of this historic "Lane" with 
a stone road. I do not wish to enter here — to 
burden this booklet with a long-drawn-out de- 
scription of how the specifications were pre- 
pared or what they were — how that to file a 
bid you had to put up a large certified check 
as a forfeit — how that the contract was to be 
let as one entire contract — how the success- 
ful bidder had to give a $50,000 bond, etc. — but 
it is sufficient to say that on the above date — 
Feb. 5th. 1912 — the contract was awarded to 
the Murray Construction Company of Sikes- 
ton. Mo., who was composed of. as it was gen- 
erally known, Mr. A. J. Matthews & Sons, and 
M. S. Murray, Civil Engineer, Surveyor of Scott 
County, of Sikeston, Mo., at a bid of $88,000. 
which would make, as you will see, $8,000 a 
mile cost of construction. Now, should thi.s 
contract be carried out and this road mac- 
adamized — it has been in litigation ever since 
the awarding' of the contract to determine the 
legality of the building of it and issuing of 
bonds — you ought to lide over an excellent road 
for that money, as you farmers who live in a 
macadamized road country no doubt know. I 
hope they get the improvement, for if ever a 
country needed roads. "Swamp-east" surely 
does. 

Schools. — No doubt should you go down to 
this country on a prospecting tour your atten- 
tion will be called to the school buildings of 
Sikeston, and I will admit they are g'ood, but 
get out in the country and study the school 
condition among the people that are not able 
to and in many cases too indifferent to care 
about their children's education. 

Out in the "swamps," where you will live 
should you buy some of this new land and move 
on to it yourself. 

Mrs. Studabaker and I counted up one day 
the children in our community that we knew of 
school age and were not going to school and 
we had 15, and among them we knew of one 
girl 14 years of age who did not know her 
A, B. C's, so we were informed. 

I»ook well into the school facilities of the 
community where you expect to locate before 
you do, and on this point the trying out of 
the country, so to speak, as I have all along 
sua-gested, by going down there and either rent- 
ing a piece of land for a year or working for 
somebody will give you that much desired op- 
portunity. 

It seemed to us that the matter of educating 
the rising generation was not so much of a 
public question as it ought to be — that is, it 
looked as though the people that had this 
care of the future men and women were in- 
different as to whether they could read or 
write, just so they were able to drive a team 
of mules or do the housework in a way was 
all that was going to be required. Other peo- 
ple would do the figuring for them. 

Jan. 20, 1912.— On this date I called at the 
Bank of Sikeston — that is, Mr. C. D. Matthews' 
bank — for my abstract of title of my farm, as 
I wnshed to make a copy of it to send Mris. 
Studabaker's relatives at Eluffton, Ind., who 
were trying to find the money to help me carry 
the proposition until I could sell it. I had left 
the abstract here for safe keeping, but it could 
not be found, and I was compelled to and did 
go away without it being found, with the un- 
derstanding that I come in again in a few 



days, and when I did return in a few^ davs 1 
was informed that it was in the hands of the 
C. M. Smith Bros. & Co. Uand Co. Now, when 
1 wanted it incorporated in the renewal of my 
oiition to this company to sell my farm that I 
wanted the right to sell my land myself, there 
were strenuous objections raised, but it was 
granted, and to come in here and find my ab- 
stract in their hands did not look right to me, 
for to go and get it would at once notify them 
that something was doing. I passed up get- 
ting the abstract and my Bluffton, Ind'ana, 
friends did not get me any relief; and I merely 
put this in to suggest to you that in case yoii 
go down into this country and have any papers 
pertaining to the title of your property and that 
are rightfully yours, and to which you may 
want to refer to most any time, that you keep 
them in your own immediate possession. 

Feb. 3, 1912. — Lost another mule with "blind 
staggers." 

Feb. IS. — Along about this date there was a 
gentleman by the name of .Joseph Schencks of 
Cypress, Indiana, visiting his old friends and 
neighbors in this community by the name of 
George Greig and Augustus Gable, and they 
were trying to get him interested in our farm 
and he had been here several times to see the 
land and talk with me about it. I asked him 
$90 per acre for it, as we were anxious to get 
all we could for the land, and besides, the 
land company had the farm for sale at $85 net 
to us, and if we offered it at the same price 
they would have a just complaint against us for 
so doing. Finally on the morning of the 20th 
of February Mr. Schenck called at the house 
and asked me if I would take $85 for the land, 
and I told him I could not afford to. He went 
away without buying anything in the com- 
munity, and in talking with Mr. Gieig and Mr. 
Gable about the matter afterward they told 
me that the reason Schencks would not buy 
the farm at $90 was that Mr. J. F. Cox of the 
Hoosier Land and Investment Company had 
told him that he could buy the farm for $85. 
Mr. Greig told me that he was present when 
Mr. Cox told him that. You can readily see, 
friend, why they would make such a statement, 
for should I have sold the land direct to Mr. 
Schencks they would not have been entitled to 
a commission and, so far as caring if I ever 
did succeed in selling out at a profit. I don't 
think any of the real estate men that were 
instrumental in getting me to make this deal 
ever lost any sleep over it. 

Feb. 22. — In to see Mr. C. D. Matthews and 
give him a note and chattel mortgage for $1,200 
against my wheat crop, $400 of which was to 
be credited to me in the store, so that I could 
trade against it, and the remainder — $800 — was 
to be held in trust until I paid the note out of 
wheat crop, when it was to be credited on my 
land notes. You will notice from this that Mr. 
Matthews was taking no chances that any of 
the proceeds derived from the sale of crops 
was wrongfully applied as this was arranged 
for and applied four months before crop was 
made. 

Feb. 23, 1912. — As I have shown and told you. 
under my contract of sale of farm, or option 
as they termed it, with the C. M. Smith Bros. 
& Co. Land Company I had the right to sell 
farm myself, but did not dare to allow any 
other firm or real estate agent to act as agenr 
for me, so when the Hoosier Land & Investment 
Company asked me about showing up my farm 
I told them of the contract I had with thy 
Smith people but as I had the right to sell the 
farm myself, I also told them that any time 
that they wanted to buy the farm to come and 
see me and I would sell it to them, and acting 
upon this they never had any hesitancy in 
showing up the land, relying upon the fact that 
should they find someone that wanted the place 
they would come and buy it of me and then 
sell it to the other party. Well, on this date. Mr. 
E. J. Keith of the Hoosier Land & Investment 
Company called at our home and told me that 
he thought without a doubt they would want 
us to deed the farm to him before night; that 
he would like for us to be at home in case 
they wanted to see us, but not to come around 



21 



where they were should they come down in 
that i)art of tlie country witli strangle people 
that day. Well, we did not give tlie people any 
chance to talk to us and tlie\' never boutrlit the 
farm. 

Feb. 25, 1912.— We had one of the rains that 
you read about and the whole country seemed 
to be afloat. 

March 23, 1912. — Paper.s over tlie country be- 




Back water from the Mississippi River, 12 Miles 
South of Sikceston on the King's Highway. 

gan to note general high waters and from this 
date on till near the last of April we were 
much worried from this cause. On the 27th 
of the month we went to New Madrid, the 
county seat of New Madrid County, which is 
situated on the banks of the Mississippi River 
near the site of the other New Madrid that 




The Rapids. 

lippi^liver 
the great earthquake in 1^1-12, and the water 
had jost began to come up into the streets and 
on the 30th it was three feet deep in the 
streets, then on the 31st it was so high that 



traffic on tlie Frisco Railroad was stopped — all 
but a little local traffic from Chaffee to Kewa- 
nce. which condition existetl vmtil near the last 
of April. On the 3d and 4th of April was doWi. 
below Kewanee where the Ijack waters from 
the Mississippi broke through the railroad grade 
and never had I expected to see anything so 
near like the rapids at Niagara Falls as I saw 
here. We took Kodak views of it, one of which 
is reproduced here, and it is much more pleas- 
ure to look at this pictui'e now than it was the 
real waters. You see we lived west of this 
great Sikeston Ridge and thought we were high- 
water-proof, but when it broke through here 
and began to inundate this west swamp, we 
dill not know so much about it. The water 
v\'as also beginning to seep across the Ridge 
in several other places farther north and while 
it brought death, loss and disaster to the in- 
habitants of the country that was protected by 
the Reelfoot Lake levee on the other side of 
the Mississifjpi River, yet it was a Godsend 
to us when that levee broke, for the water 
around New Madrid and to the east of us fell 
six inches in the one night and gave us thp 
relief that we had to have to keep us fron. 
being drowned out. Friend, you may have rear? 
of this FLOOD in the papers, or you may havo 
had a friend or relative in this district, 
but to you who never heard of it, should you 
be contemplating buying property along this 
great river, take my advice and be sure to live 
a year either as a tenant or a hand in the 
country wherein you expect to purchase before 
you do, for it will give you a chance to learn 
all about the country and its possibility of 
overflowing and drowning you out before you 
are tied up. 

March 24, 1911. — Our youngest 'boy had a chill 
today and it took lots of hot water, covers 
and Jamaica Ginger to warm him up. 

While this sandy land will stand a great 
quantity of water and yet you can work it, yet 
it seemed it would never let us get at our field 
work this spring. I give you a list of the days 
that it rained and they sure were a plenty. 
March 2d, snow storm that was a snow storm. 
March 5th, snow, high wind, etc. March 11th, 
sleeted all night. March 12th, cold, drizzling 
rain from northwest. March 14th, rained like 
fury this day. March 1.5th, misting all day. 
March 21st. cold rain from northwest with a 
29 degree temperature, turned to sleet and ice. 
March 23d, rained all afternoon. March 24th, 
rained, turning to snow. March 28th, rained 
all day. April 1st, rained all day. April 6th, 
raining again. April 9th, raining. April 10th, 
raining. April 12th, a heavy rain storm. April 
13th, rained more today. April 15th, rained 
and hailed some. April 17th, more rain. April 
19th, more rain. April 21st, more rain. April 
22d, rained hard in the night. April 25th. rain- 
ing off and on since 2 p. m. April 26th, rained 
awfully hard all night and very high wind. 
April 28th, another very hard rain with sotne 
hail. April 29th, a very hard rain last night; 
there is a great amount of water on the ground. 
We had no more hard rain from April 29th 
until May 10th, but during all this time the 
ground would no more than get so that we 
thought we could plow when another rain and 
we began to wonder if we were going to be 
allowed to plant any crops at all. 

On the 15th of April our youngest boy had 
another very hard chill. 

On the 2d of May worked some in our potato 
patch, most of the time killing bugs. This is 
certainly potato bug paradise, for the weed 
known as "Bull Nettles" has a jelly leaf very 
similar to a potato plant leaf, so, therefore, Mr. 
Beetle is not entirely dependent on the potato 
patches for the continuance of his family, and 
it matters not where you make your potato 
patch with reference to where it was last year 
you will find that Mr. Potato Bug and family 
will be there to keep you and the other pests 
company. 

There is another pest in this country known 
as the "Bull Nats" that are about as trouble- 
some as anything and they affect not only your- 
self but your animals and they frequently cause 
the death of your animals by getting into their 



22 



nostrils in great numbers. If you go down 
there to work a season you will get aciiuainteil 
with them, all right. 

June 7, 1912. — To town for groceries and it 
was on the trip home that furnished me witli 
the opportunity for the opposite picture. The 
roads or "lanes" of this country are very nar- 
row — need the ground to farm — and when a 
mud hole is developed it is not long until it 
is a case of go through it and here on the 7tli 
of June stuck in the mud with less than 80ti 
pounds of a load. 

July 12, 1912.— Wheat threshed and while we 
were expecting a good yield of from 25 to 3vi 
bushels to the acre, as the straw was there, 
yet we had to take 11 bushels and a reduction 
of 15 bushels to the acre on 120 acres rather 
iiurt my paying powers for the year's work. 

This was a loss to us of right at $1,800 and 
\ou know what that means, especiallj' when 
"you are already close up. 

Aug. 2, 1912. — For some time I had been run- 
ning along under no special option or contract 
with the "Smith Bros. & Co. Land Company 
other than the fact that they carried my note 
of $500 on land commission of $1,075 that 1 
had not been able as \-et to pa>' the interest on 
and the further loan of $500 to take up the 
mule note of Grant estate, which was made in 
the form of a one -day note and it looked to 
me as though any day that I showed a ten- 
dency to jump sidewise it would be like m\' 
trust deed on the land — made efferti\'e. 

Well, on this date they called me in and 1 
follow with the new contract or option that 
I signed. 

"Sikeston, Mo., Aug. 2, 1912. — This is to cer- 
tify, the undersigned, Hugh D. fetudabaker of 
New Madrid County, Missouri, does this day 
option to C. M. SMITH BROS. & CO. of Sikes- 
ton, Scott County, jMissouri, all of my following 
described real estate, lying, being and situate 
in New Madrid County, Missouri, upon the fol- 
lowing conditions, to-wit: 

"That said C. M. SMITH BROS. & CO. push 
the sale of my land so as to net me $85 per acre, 
paying all their own expenses while showing 
and trying to sell my land to their prospective 
land buyers, free of expenses to me. 

"I also further agree to accept half cash, 
balance on terms to suit the purchaser, bearing 
six per cent (6%) interest from date of deferred 
payments as set out in the DEED OF TRUST 
to the purchaser of C. M. SMITH BROS. & 
CO. 

"And I also agree to give C. M. S'MITH 
BROS. & CO all over $85 per acre net to me for 
their commission and services rendered me in 
the selling the land herein described, free of 
expenses to me. 

"Said land is described as follows: 

"All that part of the south half of section 7, 
township 24. range 14, lying west of the right 
of way of the St. Louis & San Francisco Rail- 
road, containing 215.04 measured acres. 

"And it is further agreed by the undersigned, 
Hugh D. Studabaker, am to have the right to 
sell the above described land myself but not 
through any other agents or real estate agency, 
except C. M. SMITH BROS. & CO.. who are 
my sole acting real estate agents. 

"I also agree to pro rate the corn rent with 
said purchaser of C. M. Smith Bros. & Co., at 
the rate of one-third delivered to market or 
$6 per acre cash rent, either way said pur- 
chaser inay elect at date of his purchase. 

"This option to expire .lanuary 1st, 1913, at 
seven-thirty p. m., on that date, and shall re- 
main in full force and effect until said above 
date. 

"Hugh D. Studabaker, 
"C. M. Smith Bros. & Co. 

"By J. E. Smith, Sr., Mgr." 

You will notice from the above contract that 
I had the right to sell this land myself, BUT 
not through any other agent or agents. Still 
it does not specify just who I dared to sell it to. 

In to see Mr. A. J. Matthews and Mr. Mat- 
thews gave me his views on life's trials and 
sucesses — not very many suc;cesses but mostly 
trials. We talked on general topics for a while 
and finally he took up the above topic and 



likened our success in life to the feeding of 
your little dog "Towser." Now, as he said, 
Towser was a good dog and you thought lots 
of him but when you came to feed him you 
could not resist the temptation to have a little 
fun with him. You would take a piece of meat 
and hold it up and say, "Come. Towser, let's 
see how high you can jump," and when Towser, 
who was yet active and able to jump, was 
about to get his breakfast you would hold it 
just a little higher. Trying him out, so to 
speak. Well, I could not help but apply it 
locally and wherein he was doing the holding 
up of the "meat" he would not have to stand 
up on the rounds of a chair to get it out of 
most any fellow's reach as Mr! A. J. Matthews 
is a vei-y tall man. 

Now, if you go down to this country, as 1 
have been suggesting all along and try rent- 
ing for a season or work for somebody before 
investing "your little roll. " You can make the 
acquaintance of Mr. A. J. Matthews and learn 
to know him as I know him, yourself. 

On the 5th of August, 1912, Mr. A. J. Mat- 
thews and his son, Emory, came out in their 
automobile and took a look at our farm. Com- 
plained that I had the farm mostly in peas 
instead of clover and as I told the folks I sus- 
pect that had I had the land mostly in clover 
thev would have suggested that it would have 
been lietter had I had it mostly in peas, for at 
this time of the year peas show up by far the 
best. Well, the upshot of their visit was that 
they offered me $80 per acre for the farm. 
After our near four years' work, cleaning up the 
farm, building it up with pease and as North- 
erners said, making it look like an Indiana 
farm, thev would offer me only $80 per acre 
for it. I told them I trusted I would not have 
to take that for it and while I did finally sell 
it for $85 per acre to W. P. Lindley of the 
Hoosier Land & Investment Company, yet the 
conditions they compelled me to sell to them 
under, as I will show you when I get to it, 
did not make me much more than that. 

Now, most of the land in our immediate 
neighborhood was on the market and my neigh- 
bor to the north, Joe Weedman, had his farm 
on the market. Joe was great on "share crop- 
pin'," as they say down here, and one of his 
share croppers had a very poor piece of corn. 
It was "some yaller," it did not look good to 
a native and you might imagine how bad it 
would look to a prospective land buyer. Well, 
as Joe was going to sow wheat here, anyhow, 
he plowed it under. 

Aug. 9, 1912. — Had a rain and hail storm that 
did a great deal of damage to the corn. 

Aug. 19. 1912. — Rode to Matthews with Frank 
Parsons and another one of Mr. Twitty's help, 
who are all from Indiana and their experience 
with the chills and fever had them very much 
discouraged, Mr. Parsons being almost blind 
from taking quinine. 

Aug. 20. 1912.— Mr. C. M. Smith. Sr., and 
party of land men hung up in mud hole and 
worked quite a time to get out. Boys and I 
then hunted up some scrapers and filled up the 
holes gratuitously. 

Just to show you or rather emphasize what 
I told you earlier in this booklet, if you would 
come liere for a season and rent or work for 
someone before tying yourself up, you might 
miss getting tied up along side of some neigh- 
bor that was like my nearest one. Now this 
was in August, about the HOTTEST time of 
the vear here or anywhere else, and a large 
sow belonging to this neighbor died within 200 
feet of his front door and do you think he 
would make an effort to dispose of the carcass? 
Nd, sir, it layed there and decayed away; 
chickens picked it to pieces and the wind 
blowed the red hair and bristles out into the 
road; the dogs carried the bones away and, say, 
-^ve were some happy people when the odor was 
gone as it was most impossible for us to get 
our mules past. 

Aug 26, 1912. — A Mr. A. J. Woolington of 
Champaign, 111., had written Mr. C. D. Mat- 
thews, wanting to buy my farm and that of 
mv nearest neighbor, Mr. Joe Weedman, and 
Mr Mattb.ews had turned over the correspond- 



23 



ence to me, so I wrote Mr. Woolington to come 
down and I would sell him my farm, and on 
this date he anived. I told him to come m on 
the night train, gave him the directions how 
to reach my place so he would not have to 
make anv inquiries and thus reveal where he 
was going and what for, so that no real estate 
agent would get hold of him and possibly tell 
him what a poor, old, sand farm I had, or in 
other wavs discourage him, and he followed 
m\- instructions except he brought a Mr. White 
w^th him and when I found out that he was 
trying to interest Mr. White in my farm 1 told 
him of my contract with the C. M. Smith Bros. 
& Co. Land Company and how under it I could 
only sell the farm to him, that 1 would not 
dPre to let him sell it to Mr. White or any 
other person and so he went back home to get 
the money to buv the farm, but I sold out to 
W. P. Lindley before he was able to make the 
raise. 

Aug. 30, 1912. — To Matthews to meet the night 
train and here met Mr. J. McConn and wife 
with their child that she was taking back to 
Indiana to try and miss a siege Of typhoid 
fever. 

Sept 2, 1912.— This day happened what proved 
to be the beginning of the end of our stay m 
Missouri. Messrs. White, Cox, Dunaway, Amos 
and another man out going over the farm. Dr. 
Dunaway came hurrying to the house for a 
spade and asked me to help them all I could 
to get this man Amos interested in the farm 
and they sure would do right by me. I told 
hint that I dared not let them sell this farm 
to anyone as my contract with the Smith peo- 
ple was such that while I had the right to sell 
the farm myself, yet I did not dare to let them 
sell it to anyone for me. Well, they looked 
the farm over and went away and the next day 
Mr. Cox of the Hoosiers came by and asked me 
to go to Sikeston with him as they wanted to 
tiy and buy my farm. I went along and we 
partly agreed upon a contract and so I went 
back" the next day and entered into the foUow- 
irg contract with Mr. Dindley for the sale and 
purchase of my farm. 

'Sikeston. Mo., Sept. 4, 1912. 

"It is agreed and entered into this day, Sept. 
4 1912, by and between Hugh D. Studabaker 
of New Madrid County, Missouri, party of the 
first part, and William P. Lindley of Scott 
County, Missouri, party of the second part. 

"In consideration of Eleven Hundred Twenty- 
five Dollars ($1,125), the receipt of which is 
hereby acknowledged paid to Hugh D. Studa- 
baker by William P. Lindley for the purpose 
of paying one $500 note given by said Studa- 
baker to Chas. D. Matthews and interest there- 
on and one $500 note given by said Studabaker 
to 'Smith Bros. Realty Co. and interest thereon 
and other considerations hereinafter named. 

Nine promissory notes of $1,412.80 each given 
by said Studabaker to Charles D. Matthews 
June 30, 1909, are to be assumed by the said 
Lindlev as part payment on the herein de- 
scribed land (said Studabaker to pay all interest 
on said notes up to and including December 
31st, 1912). 

The balance due said Studabaker is to oe 
paid in a promissory note dated October 1st, 
1912, and to be due January 1st, 1913, bearing 
interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum. 
This note to be less whatever amount said 
Studabaker owes A. J. Matthews. 

Making a total consideration of eighteen 
thousand two hundred seventy-five dollars 
($18,275.00) to be paid as above set out for 
215.04 acres of laid, said land described as 
follows, to-wit: 

All of that part of the south half (west of 
the Frisco Railroad right of way) of Sec. seven 
(7), Twp. twenty-four (24), Range fourteen (14), 
New Madrid County, Missouri. 

In consideration of the above the said Studa- 
baker agrees to deed by warranty dee(J, free 
and clear of all liens and encumbrances (except 
deed of trust notes held by Charles D. Mat- 
thews, and interest thereon to and including 
December 31st, 1912. Said Studabaker to pa>- 
lip all interest to January 1st, 1913. Studabaker 
to pay all taxes and assessments falling due 



in the year of 1912 and prior years.). Said 
Lindley to pay all taxes and assessments falling 
due in the year of 1913 and thereafter. 

Said Studabaker is to furnish abstract on or 
before fifteen days from date of this contract, 
showing good merchantable title to the herein 
described lands, and said Lindley is to have 
fifteen days after receiving abstract to approve 
same. In the event said Studabaker fails to 
deliver an abstract showing a good merchant- 
able title, then the $1,125 is to be refunded to 
the said Lindley. 

The said Studabaker agrees to pay to the said 
Lindley $150 as rent on the herein described 
land for the year 1912, but is to have all of the 
balance of crops grown during said year. 

It is fuither understood that the said Lindley 
is to have possession of all lands not now in 
corn, on or before October lOlh, 1912, for the 
purpose of sowing same to wheat. And is to 
have possession of all of the rest of the farm 
and buildings not later than the 15th of Febru- 
ary. 1913. 

The said Studabaker is to execute warranty 
deed, properly signed by himself and Wife, 
and place same with copy of this contract in 
the Citizens Bank, in Sikeston, ]\Io., to be held 
in escrow by said bank with instructions that 
when the conditions in this contract are ful- 
filled then said warranty deed is to be turned 
over to said Dindley, and whatever balance is 
due said Studabaker (after deed of trust notes 
and interest computed to January 1st, 1913, 
as given in promissory note dated October 1st, 
1912, and due January 1st, 1913, bearing interest 
at the rate of 6 per cent, payable annually) 
turned over to said Studabaker. 

HUGH D. STUDABAKER. 
WILLIAM P. LINDLEY. 

Now this contract was the source and be- 
ginning of lots of trouble. I did not want to 
give that rent of $150, and neither did I think 
it right that I should be compelled to pay 
interest on all his paper until the first of 
January, 1913, but Mr. White told me plainly 
that they would not make the deal unless I did, 
telling me that, while they expected to use 
the farm in a trade with a Mr. Amos of West 
Lebanon, Ind., wherein they were going to put 
the farm in at $125 per acre and take an 
elevator at $10,000, yet they could not make this 
deal unless I would either give them one-third 
of the corn or $150 in cash, and pay this interest 
from 1st of October to 1st of Januaiy next, a 
period of three months. For, while they wished 
to buy the farm of me and let me out, yet 
they were not going to take any chances of 
losing money on it, and I did want to get out, 
so I signed the contract, took the money and 
went around to the Smith Bros. & Co. Land C^o., 
took up the two notes they held against me, 
and they turned over the abstract that I left 
with the Bank of Sikeston, as I explained to 
you a while ago. 

Now I had my suspicions about that corn 
rental and extra interest, but was not in a 
position to gratify my curiosity at that time, 
as I had my personal property yet to dispose of, 
but the minute I was cleaned up in Missouri 
I went straight to West Lebanon and saw Mr. 
Amos, and the gist of our conversation will 
give you when I get to that point in my narra- 
ti\'e. 

September 7th. 1912.— Our oldest boy, "puny," 
as they say, with chills and malarial fever 
working on him. 

September 16th, 1912. — In Sikeston and in con- 
versation with the president of the Hoosier 
Land & Investment Company, Mr. W. A. White, 
he told me of the Smith Bros. & Co. Land Co., 
calling over Dr. Dunaway of their firm and 
going to whip him for his part in the sale of 
my farm, adding further that he had adjusted 
the matter, however, by going over that even- 
ing and agreeing to pay them a commission 
if the deal went through, so that I would not 
need have any fear — that was, if I had any — 
of the Smith Bros. & Co. Land Co. making a 
demand on me for their commission under my 
contract. 

Now. as you possibly have noticed reading 
along in this' deal, we had not received any 
real money, just been changing our indebted- 



24 



ness, so to speak, yet Mr. Lindley did advance 
me $50 on the sale, but we needed a little more 
ready money, and Mrs. Studabaker going to 
town, 1 told her just to step into the Bank of 
Sikeston and see Mr. V. D. Matthews and get 
$50, and she was veiy much wrought up when 
Mr. Matthews would not let her have it. Well, 
in a few days I went in and saw him myselt. 
lie told me of Mrs. Studaliaker being in f9r 
some money and wanted to know if we still 
wanted it. I told him the needs still existed 
that we wished it for; then he took up the 
matter of my selling out and told me that the 
Hoosier Land Company would not figure up 
the interest at a greater late than fJ per cent, 
and that if I expected him to let the deal go 
through I would have to stand for the extra 
'Z per cent he had spoken about to me. As 1 
could not help myself, I could do nothing else 
than comply, and here I gave up another $84 
and some odd cents to keep from losing all, 
which, with the -$28 I showed up as a starter, 
I in all paid about $112 to keep from having 
the trust deed provisions executed against me. 
Now friend, if you want to you can get a 
^'EIiY cheaiJ lesson from this experience of 



upon an expeiiment. I took my underwear and, 
placing it in a large pan, placed another over 
it, then put it in the stove oven and left it 
there luitil I thought it was heated thiough; 
then took them out and shook them over a 
newspaper and counted the results. 1 had 
thirty-tour. Should you go down there for a 
season you might try it. Lots of fun. 

Rveiy country has its peculiar songs, say- 
ings, etc., and fiom them you get a very good 
idea of the country. Never was this more 
truthfully given than in the following lew 
verses, which show up the credit class — and it 
certainly is right: 

It's "Charge It" on McFarlln Farm. 

It's ovei' the hill, across the knob; 
Go to McFarlin's to get you a job. 
It's haid times on McFarlin farm — 
Hard times, my boy. 

Go to McFarlin's to gel you a jol), he'd push 

back his hat and say, 
"Yes, by golly, I'll work >ou a while." 
It's hard times on McFarlin farm — 
Hard times, m>- lJo.^■. 



-^ «S^ v.^''" ,o**' 'd' V-'^ ,«N\ <ft^ 



LV't.*^"":!^ 




Acts on the liver and removes 
the cause of chilis All dealers 
will refund the money on any 
case it fails to cure if used as per 
printed directions. Sold by lead- 
Bing grocers and druggists of 
Sikeston and Scott and New 
iMadrid counties. 



'nd r'' '■"■''a;,- J 




EARLY THIS WEEK 



Morhet of Fjniily Succumbs 
M^.laria-. Child Dies Of 
Dysentery 



^^^' ^W Mrs S. McBnde. w 
^^[v^'" , » Bnde, died «I the coun 
»»'",, c'" \ Ihre. milsa west of Sil 



jof ■ 



F D, Baughn of CansI 



clack 



She 



.__ _ . and s 

days of age and was a general favorite 
not only in her family but with all the 
neighbors. While she was lying ill m 
bed her little brother Leonard, aiic 
years of age. was in the next room suf- 
fering with malaria, which seemed to 

distress the little girl Both had ^ 

inseparable play 




'*• ^^i is » '•■"" an 

Mr.-.. John Stall , 
h^r bed «.,th ^7,l'r. ««'*'" 



H Mc 

itry home about 

^eaton Wednea 

B^e of 38 yearo 

ronic case of malaHa. Sh. 

leaver a family of several children. 

The funeral was held from the home | 
10 Che Hari i-emetery Thursday after 



'day afternoon, 



Beside: 
brothers and two 
..._ jrned her death. A large c 
friendB attended tlie funeral 



.jrl Little Earl Henaonwho wa 

ipjill Ian week with malaria 

; 1 1 19 slowly improving this w 

1 quick recovery ia expected. 


sseri.u,l,i 
menmR.tisl| 
eek Hi.| 

■■.. ..J 



Clippings of Chills, Fevers and Cures. 



mine. Well, I secured this extra 2 per cent — 
what I was back in the store — and the $50 
cash that we needed, and had to have with a 
chattel mortgage on all our personal property 
that was worth anything and not under cover 
already. I had to pay $1 for that mortgage, 
also, and will explain that fully when I come 
to it. 

September 22d, 1912. — Well, we had our amus- 
ing experiences as well as our serious ones. 
Fleas were quite bad at this time. Do most 
anything you wanted to, you could not get 
rid of them, and, knowing that extreme heat, 
rightfully applied, would pacify them, I decided 



Mr. McFarlin claims to be boss — 
Barrelful of money, but won't come across. 
Hard times on McFarlin farm — 
Hard times, my boy. 

Mr. INIcFarlin pays his hands in the fall 
And some of his hands he don't pay at all. 
It's "charge it" on McFarlin farm; 
It's "charge it," my boy. 

I\Irs. McFarlin- she wants a new dress. 

She'll go to the counter and pick out the best. 

And it's "charge it" on McFarlin farm; 

It's "charge it," my boy. 



25 



Well, if you want a pair of shoes, 

It's go get an order from A. J. Matthews. 

And it's "charge it," my boy; 

It's "cliarse it, ' my l)oy. 

O soupy! O soupy! without any lieaiis — 
O meaty. O meaty! without any lean. 
And it's "charge It" on McFarlin farm; 
It's "charge it," my boy. 

Well, Mr. McFarlin, he thought he was rich, 
So he ran his old thresher off into the ditch, 
And it's "charge it," my boy; 
It's "charge it," my boy. 

About everythin.^- among these "shear crop- 
peis" is set to the above lines of expression 
in the way of rhyme, and if you are here for 
a while you will learn that there is more truth 
than fiction in it. 

October 10th. 1912. — It seems that our eldest 
boy was not to get off with chills and malaria, 
but must shed some of his poison via the 
"lising ' loute. 

October 20th, 1912.— So far. Mrs. Studabaker's 
affection from the climate had been confined 
to headaches and light fevers, but this day 
she was taken with a regular chill, and her 
constitution was so affected by it — her fever 
going to 105 — that for an hour her circulation 
was hardly noticeable. Such cases need heroic 



DRRvAiARMISTEAD'S 

: ■. ■ MF-^sk rvi O" .*J s: ■ ._^ 

i^GUE TONIC 

■■■ ; -P-LEASANT TO' TAKE , 
. :D WILU NOT .HARM THE- MOST DELICATE CHILD, 




^:- TOMIS tf? 



THEDF0RD"5 

BLACKrDRAUGHT 

FOR THE LIVER 



TASTELESS 

CHILL TONIC 



TASTELESS 

HILL-TQT 



H1LLT6SS 



uri 



MALARIA 



Fence and Tree Decorations. 



treatment and as quickly as we could she was 
taken to Hotel Marshall in Sikeston, where, 
under the careful treatment of Dr. T. V. Miller 
and a trained nurse, Mrs. Carroll, after one 



more chill the chills were checked, and in just 
a week she was able to return home again. 

Now we were more than thankful that we 
were in a position to, and could do this, but 
did you have a good crop on your farm and 
were able to make money out of the land, you 
would dislike to have to pay it out for outings 
of that nature. Her week's treatment cost 
about one himdred dollars. You can hardly 
realize how pleased we all were that our days 
ill this malarious climate were numl^ered, and 
from this time till our public sale, Januar> 
30th, 1913, I had Mrs. Studabaker stay in the 
north all that I could. 

November 18th, 1912. — Naturally, enterprising 
medicine companies advertise their wares, and. 
as this is the country where malaria and chills 
exist to a greater or less extent, and general 
stores, drug stoies and doctors have sale f(vr 
anything that looks like it might be good for 
the "shakes," it is not to be wondered at that 
signs like in the picture that I hand you here- 
with appear on the fences, buildings, trees, etc., 
and that is not a beginning of the chill tonics 
prepared and sold and. for your selection, 
should you care to lay in a supply before going, 
if you are interested in a drug store or have 
a friend that is, I print you a list that are 
manufactuied and sold, I am informed: 

List of chill tonics that you might wish to 
select from: 

chill-t-tonic. 

armistead's ague tonic. 

aspinwall's fever and ague tonic. 

crabbe's chill tonic. 

ford's chill and fever tonic. 

greer's chill tonic. 

grangp:r's aromatic chill tonic. 

grove's chill tonic. 

hill city chill tonic. 

howell's chill and fever tonic. 

johnson's chill tonic. 

kidds chill tonic. 

knox's chill tonic. 

leonard's tasteless chill and iron 

TONIC. 

LILLYBECK'S "TWO-BIT" CHILL TONIC. 

LOXA BARK CHILL TONIC. 

MENDENH ALL'S CHILL AND FEVER 
T(~)NIC. 

PLANTATION CHILL TONIC. 

PLANTER'S TASTELESS CHILL TONIC. 

PLATT'S CHILL TONIC. 

DR. PYNES' CHILL AND FEVER TONIC.' 

RED RIVER CHILL TONIC. 

RICH'S TASTELESS CHILL TONIC. 

SCHAAP'S LAXATIVE CHILL TONIC. 

.^niONS TASTELESS CHILL TONIC. 

SMITH'S CHILL AND FEVER TONIC. 

SPAIiK'S TASTELESS CHILL AND FEVER 
TONIC. 

ST. JOSEPH'S CHILL TONIC. 

l^CATAN TASTELESS CHILL TONIC. 

UNCLE SAMS CHILL TONIC. 
, VICK'S LACTATED CHILL TASTELES.S 
TONIC. 

WINTERSMITH'S CHILL TONIC. 

WOOD'S CHILL TONIC. 

REXALL CHILL BREAKER. 

November 21st, 1912. — Our eldest boy and I 
went pecan hunting in what is known as the 
St. John's bayou country and camped in this 
earthquake-torn-up country on the banks of 
this bayou where the water was said to be 
forty feet deep during the high waters of last 
spring. 

November 23d, 1912. — As I have been showing 
you all along, this country is mostly inhabited 
by the tenant class, and they have city folks 
"beat a block" when it comes to moving around 
Some of them stay a week in a place and 
some a little longer, and, in fact, it seems to 
you that the country is always on the move. 
We saw The section wherein we lived changed 
completely, other than ourselves, for we were 
safely tied, you know, three times within the 
near four years we lived there. 

December 6th, 1912.— While in St. Louis with 
some live stock. I met Mr. J. F. Cox of the 
Hoosier Land & Investment Company, and in 
talking over the progress of my settlement 
with them on land that I sold to Mr. Lindley, 
he told me if I would call at the office when I 



26 



returned to S'ikeston that the boys would settle 
up with ine In full, as they had the money to 
do it with. Now, to make my point clear on 
this, will have to tell you in regards to their 
renting the farm to a Mr. Gable, which was, 
or ought to have been, subject to my contraci 
that I sold out under in which I stated I was to 
have possession of the ground and buildings 
where we lived, and the cornstalk land, until 
February 15th, 1913, and it seems that Mr. Gable 
was not made aware ot this fact; at least the\' 
were trying to get me to give up possessioii 
and board with Gable, and let him have the 
larni. To maiie it real effective, Mr. White 
told me that they would pay me my money 
if 1 would consent to do this. Now imagine 
the situaiion, if you can— this family moving 
in with you in a home that had not proven 
any too large for your own family, and all to 
get a settlement that was due you anyhow. 
1 told Mr. White I could wait, and when he 
saw that his bluff would not work he told me 
to come in the first of the week and they would 
see if thej" could raise the money. I am onl\- 
putting you wise, so to speak, for, should you 
go down to this country to live, you will run 
up against some of these people and, while the.v 
might not treat you that way, yet you will be 
posted as to the fact of the way they treated 
me. 

December 11th and 14th, 1912. — In the rec- 
lamation of this "S'^VAMP■' country the great 
thing is the ditches and their permanency, foi 
these ditches have to be made and paid for, 
and the land has to do this out of the crops. 

Novv' this country is underlaid with a body 
of sand of a very fine nature; in fact, it is su 
washy that it is spoken of generally as "quick- 
sand," and, whether that is right or wrong, 
scientifically speaking, yet it does not have 
much stability to it, especially when immersed 
in watei', and when, in digging one of these 
ditches through this sand, it is not long in 
filling up [0 whatever depth you find the sand 
under the top soil, so when I speak of not being 
able to maintain a ditch deeper than to where 
you strike this sand vein, you will understand 
what is meant. Now I was here long enough 
to see the harm done your land and crops by 
impossibility of water to get off in time after 
one of these very heavy rains — to see some of 
these old ditches recleaned, etc. One I will 
speak of in particular was just one mile to 
the west of our home, 1 nown as Ash slough 
or Second ditch, and in the summer of 1911 
it was redug and made considerably wider and 
to a. deptli of ten feet. Wanting to give facts 
as to the filling up of this ditch, on the 11th 
of December, 1912, I went to this ditch at a 
point where the section line between Sections 
12 and 13 crosses the same, and as there was 
a small lateral ditch dug into Ash slough here, 
I went a few rods up the ditch so as to not be 
too close to the inflow of this lateral, and 
here measured it as to depth and found it to 
be forty-four inches to the water, and water 
eighteen inches deep, or a total depth of five 
feet and two inches, and this after it had been 
dug only about one year and six months, and 
the end of the filling up is not yet. for the 
banks are still caving. Then I went to the 
Bank ditch, which ran through my farm, and 
measui-ed this as to depth and found it was 
three feet to water, and water eight inches 
deep, or a total depth of forty-four inches. 
Measured it about five rods south of where 
my north line crosses this ditch. Now. as to 
my method of measuring, I. drove stakes in the 
gi-ound at a natural level and from their tops 
di-ew a string taut, and then measured from 
the point on the stakes where it was tied to 
the .ground, and then at the banks of the ditch 
measured down from the strin.g to get the 
original level of the ground, and then drew a 
string taut across the ditch and from the level 
of this string measured the depth. You see. 
when >ou ride across one of these dredged 
ditches, or along them, you look down at the 
water and are apt to think and remark as to 
how deep they are, never taking a thought to 
look down on the other side of the dump as 
to how far it is down to the ground. 

Now I contend that they will never be able to 



maintain a depth of drainage in this country 
unless they find a way to keep this "quick 
sand'' from undermining the banks of the ditch 
and filling it up. In a conversation with Mr. 
Murry, surveyor uf Scott County and head of 
the Murry Construction Company of Sikeston, 
he bears me out in this, and added further that 
the onl>' way to do it successfully would be to 
concrete the bottoms of them, which any good 
thinking peison will see at a glance is im- 
practicable, not to say impossible. 

I had come to the conclusion, and I believe 
jou will also, once you go to this country and 
study the pioposition carefully, that the only 
time that you will^et a crop in this country 
is when it is an ordinary dry year. 

December 17th, 1912. — Into Sikeston, and, 
even if Mr. White could not get me to give 
Mr. Gable a room in the house to live in and 
allow him to bring over his chickens, they paid 
me what was coming, as shown by note on 
the land deal, and I immediately made settle- 
ments where I had accounts, and in taking up 
the note given Mr. Matthews, to protect store 
account, and the extra 2 per cent interest he 
charged me for allowing me to sell out as I did, 
and here I want to elaborate a little on the 
interest question. A part of this note was 
given for extra interest on interest, and on 
top of that I paid interest on it and also the 
store account. At other times I did not have 
to always pay interest on store account, but 
this was the last chance, so it seemed to me. 

December 30th, 1912. — Went down to New 
Madrid to pay taxes and on the way went 
west of Kewanee to take another picture of 
the land that I took picture of this spring, 
intending to show \ou how effectually a crop 
of corn hid from view the stumps in a field. 
but, sorry to say, the field I took picture of 




A "Cleared" Field, 



this spring, which is reproduced here, they were 
not able to get in, as the back waters from 
(he :Mississippi and the' local rains kept it 
wet too long, e\en, if it was only a quarter of a 
mile from a dredged ditch. 

If you come to this country to buy land 
when" the crop is on, don't be afraid to care- 
fullj' go through the field and gain a veiy good 
idea YOURSEDF as to how many stumps there 
is in it, because these stumps take up room, 
or they take time and money to get them out, 
and you can very easily buy up a big job and 
you are liable to regret it, once the crop is off 
and you see how you were STl'NG! 

On down the Frisco right of way, to a point 
as thej' mark it, 182-10, where the picture of 
the "RAPIDS" was taken last spring, and the 



27 



effects of them are still here. Ballast all over 
the land for quite a distance— gullys, etc., 
washed out, and, in fact, numbers of acres 
simply destroyed as far as farming is con- 
cerned, without a large amount of worlc. 

December 31st, 1912. — While Mrs. Studabaker 
tho^ight she was to get out of Missouri without 
any further malarial troubles, yet in this she 
was disappointed, for she had another chill 
this day, and it was more strychnine and 
arsenic, because she could not take quinine. 

January 1st, 1913. — I thought that I was going 
to escape any of the other than ordinary ills 
incident to a change of climate li!\e coming to 
Missouri, but in this I was to be fooled, for at 
this time I began getting boils — -"risings" — on 
my neck, and say, I had some "risings" that 
was "risings" within the next thirty days, but 
I had to keep at it, for the public sale was to 
come off the 30th and things had to be looked 
after, and I sure kept at it, "risings" or no 
"I'isings." 

January 14th, 1913. — While in New Madrid a 
short time before this date and copying our 
trust deed from the records, I heard one of 
the deputies remark that she had an awful 
amount of work to do that had just come in, 
and she said A. J. ]\Iatthews had just filed 
fifty chattel mortgages, and this party said. 
"Oh, that won't amount to much, as you will 
only have to register them, as he only files his 
mortgages." I inquired what was meant by 
"only filing mortgages," and it was explained in 
this way: When a mortgage is spread of record 
it costs a dollar, but when a mortgage or copy 
is filed it only costs ten cents. This was a new 
one on me, and as I had been giving Mr. C. D. 
Matthews several mortgages and paying $1.00 
each for them, I was curious to know how he 
cared for his mortgages, and I looked them up 
and found that he filed his chattel mortgages 
and that I had given him seven (7) at a total 
cost to myself of $7.00 and a cost to himself for 
filing of 70 cents. Of course I gave these mort- 
gages to protect Mr. C. D. Matthews in selling 
me goods on credit, and L merely recite these 
matters to you, dear reader, that when you go 
to Missouri to work for a season or niake a 
crop and have to have credit you can be in a 
position to know exactly what other people 
make off of your needing and accepting their 
assistance. 

Jan. 30th, 1913. Public Sale Day. I was so 
determined to get out of this country that in- 
stead of renting farm when I sold land and 
trusting to following the usual custom of this 
country of "selling out rental proposition and 
your farm implements and other personal prop- 
eity," I decided to make a long storv short and 
have a public sale, and so from generous ad- 
vertising and a very good day as to weather 
I had a fair crowd and things sold fairly well. 
I v,-ould not advise anyone, however, to run 
against the usual custom of a country, as you 
are more than apt to lose out. 

February ."ith, 1913. While mv sale ad read 
that all goods were to be settled "for before being 
moved, yet where people were supposed to be 
as good as A. J. Matthews, or his sons, Dvman, 
m particular, I did not enforce the rule, and bv 
so doing I lost out to the extent of about $12. 
I had sorted the corn that I had— it being 
Johnson County White— of a very pure breed — 
and in order that people might bid on it in 
small quantities I made 14 piles of about 12 
bushels each and so informed the auctioneer, 
Mr. A. A. Ebert, of Sikeston, Mo., that he should 
sell one pile with the privilege of taking as 
many as they wanted, and that each pile was 
supposed to contain about 12 bushels. Well I 
was not present when he made the statement 
to the people as to the amount of each pile, but 
w-as there in time to hear Lyman Matthews bid 
off one pile at $4.00, and when Mr. Ebert asked 
him how many he wanted, said he would take 
them all, which made this corn bring about 33 
cents per bushel, which was less than the feed 
corn, which was the inferior grades out of this 
same corn, brought. Well. I could not object 
to the bidding of it off, neither did I trv to, 'but 
T ^'"2" ^''*^' "°* settle for it that dav. and when 
I had the clerks. Messrs. Deane and Case, call 
him up over the 'phone about it, he made all 



kinds of apologies, so they said, and agreed to 
I emit for it at once. Waited the next day for 
check to come and it did not. so as I had busi- 
ness in Sikeston the next day, I told Messrs. 
1 )eane and Case that I would call at their office, 
office of A. J. Matthews & Sons, and see Lyman 
and settle with him there, and as that was on 
my road to leave Missouri, I did go to Sikeston 
the next day and to their offices and when 1 
spoke of corn settlement, he told me that they 
had taken the corn home and weighed it and it 
fell short quite a number of busliels, and as Mr. 
Ebert had guaranteed it to be 12 bushels to the 
pile that was all they would settle for. Now 
Mr. Ebert had not been authorized by me to 
GUARANTEE amount, giving an amount of 12 
bushels as an approximate amount for people 
to figure from, telling how we had arrived at 
that amount, , but here I was— ready to leave 
the country — all settlements made but this one 
— didn't know where Mr. Ebert was — corn had 
been weighed by one of their tenants out in 
the country, just how and where I did not know, 
so I let it go and settled with them at the 
reduced amount by which I lost at least $12 
on A No. 1 seed corn that they had already 
bought at the ridiculously low price of about 
33 cents per bushel, and then as Mr. Lj'man 
Matthews had said that the check was in the 
mails I waited for Messrs. Deane and Case to 
report it, so about 7 p. m. that evening they 
came driving in from Matthews with ths letter 
but no check, and had to insist on Messrs. 
Matthews & Sons giving a check for it— the 
reduced amount — so that I might not be delayed 
in my getting away the next day, for the boys 
trip in — trying to help me and getting a settle- 
ment out of these people on this small matter I 
paid them an extra $4. Didn't get much for 
that seed corn,- did I? Now a word to the wise 
is sufficient, and I trust, friend, you will profit 
liy my experience. 

February 7th, 1913. From Sikeston I went 
direct to West Lebanon, Ind., and here met Mr. 
Charles Amos, who said he was the party that 
had bought land of Mr. Lindley that I used to 
own, and I told him as I was on my way to 
Chicago I thought I would come by and see 
what kind of a talk he had had with the boys, 
and' asked him if he received either directly or 
indirectly any benefit from the fact that I gave 
up to Mr. Lindley $150 rental on the land and 
he said he had not. Then I told him that while 
it was not in my contract, yet Mr. White and 
T liad talked the deal over and he told me that 
they did not wish to buy my farm unless they 
could resell it and that they could not resell it 
unless they could get $1.50 out of the rental for 
this year and 1 would have tu pay the interest 
until the 1st of January, 1913, on the back notes. 
Well, Mr. Amos and I went to the bank where 
he was cashier and he read over his contract 
and told me that he did not receive the $150 
rental, and he had to begin paying interest on 
the deferred payments from October 1, 1912, so, 
reader, you can see that in addition to many 
other things there was at least a conflict of 
statements on this matter, while in truth there 
was two statements — separate contracts — and it 
was all right for there to be, for I sold the land 
to W^. P. Lindley, and Mr. Amos bought it of 
Mr. Lindley, and in my contract they had me 
paying interest on about $14,000 from October 
1, 1912, to January 1, 1913, and at the rate of 
6 per cent interest to Mr. C. D. Matthews, and 
on top of this Mr. C. D. Matthews had me pay- 
ing an extra 2 per cent for accommodation — 
not enforcing the provisions of the trust deed 
— and on the other hand Mr. Lindley had Mr. 
Amos paying 6 per cent on I suppose a like 
amount, from October 1, 1912, to January 1. 
1913, and also that $150 rental on farm was lost 
somewhere. Now I did not want to create a 
feeling with Mr. Amos that he had been 
skinned, but I could see that he was leaning 
that way, and in our talk I asked him what they 
bad done with the elevator they had traded 
for and he told me they had resold it and he did 
not know just exactly what they had received 
for it, out it was either $5,000 or more. Now I 
had asked Dr. Dunaway what they received for 
elevator and he said $4,000 and then I asked 
Mr. White and he told me a little more than 



28 



$5,000, so there are two people that mention 
the amount of $5,000 and we will figure up com- 
missions from that amount. The farm was to 
be put in at $125 per acre, and there being 215.04 
acres, we have a totai amount for farm of $26,- 
880, then the elevator was to be put in at $10,- 
000, which would leave the farm at a cost of 
$16,880. Now I received $18,275 for the farm, 
and the difference between $18,275 and $16,880 is 
$1,395. Take this amount from what the ele- 
vator was sold for and you have approximately 
what the Hoosier Land and Investment Com- 
pany received for their work in buying me out 
and getting Mr. Charles Amos of West Lebanon 
Interested in "Swamp-East" Mo. farm lands. Of 
course you will have to add the little perquisi- 
tes that they gathered up along the way, such 
as the $150 EXTRA rental on lands— that 
doubling up of interest on the deferred pay- 
ments that somebody paid, and just to get a 
clearer idea of the amount will set it out in 
figures, which, as I said above, are approxi- 
mately correct. 

Taking it that the elevator was sold for $5,- 
000, we will take the differences between what 
Mr. Lindley paid me for the farm ($18,275) and 
what he sold it to Mr. Amos for in the trade 
($16,880), which is $1,395, leaves them a margin 

of $3,605.00 

Add to this my EXTRA land rental 150.00 

Add to this that interest for 3 months 

on $14,000 at 6 per cent 210.00 



in all that time it has not paid anything like a 
profit. 

Now, friend, the most striking lesson to be 
learned from my booklet is right here, and as I 
told Mr. Amos had he come down to Missouri 
and investigated the farming land proposition 
DIRECT, even had he stayed around there a 
season or worked for somebody he could not 
have made greater money, for as I showed him 
if he would have paid me $1,395 more for my 
farm than I received he could not only have 
had my farm but retained the elevator himself 
as well, as it is he has a farm at $40 more per 
acre than I asked for it and the real estate 
agent business has been wonderfully encour- 
aged. 

That there are numerous real estate agents in 
southeast, or more familiarly known as "swamp- 
east" Missouri, is not to be wondered at. I 
see in the Sikeston Directory that there are 17. 
that is in Sikeston alone, and you know where 
they live, in the best of homes — have automo- 
biles, etc., that some one has to pay the freight. 
I herewith reproduce a picture of the fine home 
of James Smith, Sr., said to have cost $20,000 
or more, and also a picture of the automobiles 
of the Hoosier Land and Investment Company. 
The upkeep of things of this nature is immense, 
as no doubt you can imagine if you do not 
know, and it is necessary to be turning this 
swamp land over pretty often to provide the 
revenue, so if you are contemplating going down 




This IS a Very Fine Home. 



Now there was some commission that 
they tried, that is, Mr. Amos said Dr. 
Dunaway tried to collect off him for 
sale of elevator, but which he did not 
pay. 



A total commission of $3,965.00 

Very near $4,000, is it not? Well, of course 
they had some expense in this matter, but you 
can figure that at whatever you wish to. 

Now I trust I have made this clear to you. 
friend, as I have been telling vou all along I 
would show you how there was LARGER FISH 
in the DITCH than I was. Now to recapitulate 
and show how this poor old piece of swamp land 
is Commission ridden, will add to the above the 
$1,075 that I contracted to and had to pav and 
you will have a grand total of $5,040 that has 
been saddled upon it in less than 4 years, and 



here for either an investment or a home, better 
go down awhile first and study the situation 
and see whether or not you wish to contribute 
to the above needed revenue. You might want 
a little for yourself, and I have tried my best to 
call your attention to a way fof you to reserve 
it unto yourself. 

Now I expect there will be affidavits taken 
of people to show you that I have misrepre- 
sented things and all that kind of work, but 
will say to you, find out the party that made 
the affidavit, study his interests in this country, 
and what you would do under the circum- 
stances. I will say to you truthfully that I 
was so anxious to get out that I would have 
almost made an afl^davit that black was white 
had I been asked to. 

Now, in ending up this little booklet let me 
lead you along a short review of my rubbing 



29 



up against these several parties and what "it 
cost me both in leal money and worry and I 
do not much wonder that men go to pieces 
like "Whistling" Tom Me\ers and end it all. 

The first I met up with was the Smith Bros. 
& Co. Land Co. and this was at a time when^ 
they had associated with them the first four 
m.embers of the Hoosier Land and Investment 
Co. They sold me a farm of 21.5.04 acres of 
land at .^7.5 per acre and afterwards when :t 
develops that I could not pay out they tell me 
that I should not have ovei'bought myself, and 
thinking they will nossitaly tell you the same, 
will say that at the time I purchased this farm 
my brother-in-law, Mr. H. D. Cook, was living 
and as he was worth some $.50,000 and had fur- 
nished me the money to make my first payment 
and had assured me he would see me through 
on the deal, I expect you would have been like 
me and went ahead. The real tiouble came 
when he was killed and it was a case of close 
up the proposition. The Smith Bros. & Co. 
Land Co. carried my land note for $500 that 
was given them as a part of the commission, 
and in addition to this furnished me with $500 



anywhere from $2,150 to $4,300, had they moved 
the property. 

Mr. C. D. Matthews, who furnished the land 
for the deal with me as I have previously shown 
.\ou, had a tract of land where I bought the 
first out of, of near 1,100 acres that he, had not 
been able to get the land companies to sell, 
and my purchase and efforts to sell more of it 
caused it all to be soon closed out, and from 
a proposition of getting about .?3.50 per acre 
lental GROSS on whatever the renter would 
get in, to a sure return of $4.50 per acre NET 
on whatever acreage was sold and whatever 
improvements were made on the property, also 
the profit he made off my trade, off of what- 
ever accommodations he would show me in his 
bank, off of whatever grain I raised on the 
farm that I always sold to the Milling Com- 
pany that he was the heaviest stockholder in, 
and in return for all this, or rather I should 
say on top of all this change of investment 
to the profit side of the ledger, because I had 
to have accommodations, he charged me $1.00 
per chattel mortgage, when he filed them for 10 
cents, compelled me to pay him an extia 2 




The Upkeep is What Hurts. 



more on A No. 1 security to take up a mule 
note, and I was fast getting into their hands, 
for these accommodations I gave them options 
on my land for all they could get over $85 net 
to us, trusting that they would make the prop- 
erty move. Crops were poor. I was not mak- 
ing hardly the interest and taxes off the land, 
to say nothing about the payments. They 
claimed to be at the outs with the Hoosier 
Land and Investment Company and with A. J. 
Matthews, but they could sell land for them, 
but while they had unlimited sway with my 
property yet they could not sell me" out. They 
were asking all kinds of prices for the farm, 
while Mr. C. D. Matthews, who held the trust 
deed, was offering it at $80, and Mr. A. ,T. 
Matthews was out and offered me $80, so I 
did not know for a truth where it was going 
to end. The Smith Company offered to stand 
between me and the Matthews people, but what 
was the use; they did not move the property 
now in most two years and at the rate it was 
eating itself up, soon there would be nothing 
to sell and I was reallv getting desperate. I 
would not object to, did not object to. a com- 
mission of any amount most, but wanted out. 
and no one was happier than I when I did get 
out. They received their money, advanced with 
full interest, and the opportunity of making 



per cent on whatever amounts I could, not meet 
when due, which amounted to about $112.00, 
so that he would not enforce the conditions of 
the DEED OF TRUST. 

The Hoosier Land ^nd Investment Company 
at the time of their organization was composed 
of Wm. A. White, W. P. Lindley, E. .J. Keith, 
.1. F. Cox and interests were afterward sold to 
Dr. Dunaway of West Lebanon, Ind., and .7. W. 
Black of Indiana, and my dealings with the 
firm began when they were yet interested with 
the Smith Bros. & Co. Land Company, in fact 
Mr. Cox showed us the farm that we afterward 
purchased and Mr. White diew up the con- 
tracts. Then when they withdrew from the 
parent company, and at a time when I was not 
tied up with the Smiths they had my land for 
sale, but at that time they could not, or at 
least did not, sell it, although they sold several 
pieces of land in my neighborhood. When they 
knew I was SAFELY tied up with the Smith 
Land Co. they wei-e talking to me a number of 
times about what they could do for me if I was 
only loose. That the Smiths were only using 
my farm to show and convince people what 
other lands would look like once they were put 
up in shape like ouis, etc., and finally I did 
get a clause inserted in my contract with the 
Smiths that I had the right to sell land myself, 



30 



and then Mr. Lindley of the Hoosiers bought 
the farm of me as I have shown you in the last 
few pages. ^ . ^ _,. 

I have shown you that my trip to Missouri 
was a verv expensive one to me and in my 
tabulated receipt and expenditure account that 
follows YOU will notice amounts of my store 
account with the Farmers' Supply Co. of 
Sikeston, and without a doubt it will be told 
to vou that we were a veiy extravagant farn- 
ily.' If vou care to and will look tliat part of it 
up I would be pleased to have you call on the 
Farmers' S'upplv Company and look over the 
Itemized statement of our account that they 
kept, and if you find extravagant purchases 
there write me about them. 

Summing it all up. friend, remember what I 
have told you, should you go down to this coun- 
try and it' looks 'good to you don't fall in. Ar- 
range your affairs so that you can either go 
down there and farm for a season on a rental 
proposition or work for somebody a year, and 
I speak from experience when I say I know 
that vou will pioflt greatly by it. 

The matters that I have set out in this book 
are all true. Just as they happened to me, and 
the parties that I have spoken of lived at the 
places that I speak of at the time I went 
through this experience with them. Go down 
there if you wish to. Don't let my experience 
keep you from it, BUT PROFIT BY IT. 

APPENDIX. 

To you, Mr. Banker, trusted man of your 
community, to whom I have mailed this little 
booklet, full of safeguards for j'our friends, I 
trust vou will be interested enough to read it 
and see to it that It gets to the parties that 
can and WILL profit by it when they read it 
and have the opportunity to PROFIT by it. 
You know and I know that a spirit of unrest is 
always present in some of the people of each 
community, and it is only natural that they 
go to the country .that is represented to them 
to be one flowing with milk and honey, and to 
call their attention before it is tOo late. Give 
that railroad sign a chance to act — STOP- 
LOOK— LISTEN— and you will not regret it. 

I have prepared this book with a purpose in 
view of trying to save other enthusiastic people 
from falling into the same trap that I did, and 
as you will see from my financial statement 
filed herewith what it cost me to go down to 
tliis country for near four years, both in finance 
and my children's school life, and while I am 
anxious and willing to do this service, still 
I must ask you to help a little, and that is remit 
me 25 cents each for all numbers of this booklet 
you can use. Should you not desire to hand 
the booklets out to your friends that are con- 
templating moving to a new country and would 
like for them to have a copy, mail me a list of 
addresses that you wish them sent to and a 
remittance of 25 cents each to cover the same 
and I will take pleasure in mailing them the 
booklets. As to my responsibility and honesty 
I would refer you to any of the bankers of my 
former home town, Bluffton, Ind. These book- 
lets will only cost you a quarter apiece and it 
might be the cause of saving some of your 
friends. Well, figure up what I would have 
saved had I not gone to Missouri, and besides, 
it would impress upon them the advisability of 
staying where they know the people and who 
they are dealing with. I think I have made it 
clear enough in the foregoing pages that there 
are people in "Old Swamp-East" Missouri that 
are on the make, and are not particular who 
they make it off of. 

Please do not throw this in the waste basket, 
as it is a product of my lost efforts in this 
malarious country. Give it to some one thaT 
can profit by it. and if they do not heed they 
will have opportunity to compare accounts 
some time in the future. 

FINANCIAL EXHIBIT. 
1909. 

Received from sale of corn $1,825.00 

Received from rent of land 525.00 

Paid for corn $1,227.00 

Paid taxes 159.00 



Interest on Investment to .lan. 

1, 1010 ^S.-.S! 

Living expenses from .Iniie :;i) 

to .Ian. I, lino, moving, etc, 

about b 0. 

S'eed wheat • 100.00 

Help taking off corn crop and 

putting out wheat, about... 300.00 

$2,869.84 $2,350.00 

Short for year lliOO 519.81 

1910. 

From sal'i of wheat $ - if .1- 

Froni sale of corn , „ ,r.i 

From sale of hogs -,,, „■ -■''•-■- 

Short for year 1909 $ ol9.b4 

Interest on investment to Jan. 

1, 1911 ^ti^-IS 

Taxes 164.44 

Loss by death of animals :?c'?a 

Store account i46.10 

Extra help and threshing ac- ... 

count 12/. 14 

$2,805.20 $1,807.82 
Short for year 1910 997.38 

From sale of wheat H'-!j?.'nn 

From sale of corn 'i--"ftA 

From sale of pea hay lou.wu 

Short for year 1910 $ 997.38 

Interest on investment till Jan. 

1 iqi') 967.68 

Taxes ...'.'.' 206.00 

Extra heip clearing land ■^^?-^9 

Store account ^ni'A , 

Store account 91. b4 

Extra help and expense of 

threshing 141.82 

Extra help in taking off corn 

crop and shelling llo.dl 

$3,514.53 $2,959.00 

Short year 1910 445.53 

1912. 

From sale of wheat $ ??n'nA 

From sale of cow peas 14U.U0 

Short for year 1911 $ 445.53 

Interest on investment to Jan. 

1, 1913 96(.6S 

Taxes 190.36 

Hulling oeas and baling pea 
hay, also threshing wheat 
and extra help 258. 6a 

Farmers' Supply Co. (store ac- 
count), not in following 
note 265.80 

Farmers' Supply Co. note, 
which includes about $200 
worth of farm machinery 400.00 

$2,525.02 $ 975.00 
Short at time of farm sale 
and sale of personal 

property l.boO.f): 

1912, . 

Received from sale of farm— 
original investment ^..^.uuu.uu 

Received from sale of farm— oi-aaa 

increase in valuation 2,luU.ou 

Received from sale of personal „ n1,^ n« 

property 2,ol0.00 

Short at time of farm sale and 
personal property $l,5u0.02 

Paid commission note of $500 
and interest $101.95 to C. M. 
Smith Bros. & Co. Land Co.. 601. 9o 

Paid to C. M. Smith Bros. & 
Co. Land Co. for money ad- 
vanced to take up mule note 525.77 

Note of C. D. Matthews cov- 
ering store account and part 
of the extra 2% interest 
charged 1)17.00 

Mrs. Studabaker's malarial 

sickness 87.40 

Baling and threshing pea hay. 110.00 

Horse note and interest to C. 

D. Matthews 339.00 

Farmers' Supply Co., store ac- 
count 73.68 

B. Moser, for cash loaned and 

interest 124.00 



31 



MAY 3 1913 



W. M. Busby, store account, 

about 30.00 

Remitted Studabaker Bank on 
original loan 700.00 

B. Moser, peas 65.00 

llepairs for machinery, wag- 
ons, blacksmith bill and 
sond.^^ of Farmers' Supply Co. 
in Novomlier 7S.00 

-Xdvciti.siiig .sale and expense 

of posting, etc 30.00 

Auctioneer 25.00 

Remitted Studabaker Bank on 
original loan 1,500.00 

Clerks at sale 19.00 

Expense loading car, freight, 
etc 82.50 

Farmers' Supply Co. for ac- 
count in December 67. SS 

Cash spent as shown by in- 
dividual cash account from 
Sept. 1, 1912. to Feb. 1, 1913, 
and not included in above.... 433.98 

$6,960.18 $6,460.00 



S'hort at closing of account. 500. IS 

No doubt the reader will have noticed that 
the revenues I have accounted for were de- 
rived from either the products of the farm or 
the sale of the farm and personal property, and 
according to the above I come out $500.18 in 
debt. Now to this I must add a difference of 
what my original investment was — $2,800 — an<l 
what I paid- on it — $i',200 — an amount of $600, 
making a total of approximately $1,100.00. These 
extra amounts being- secured from friends in 
Bluffton. I also used some $500 derived from 
the sale of my hotel stock to carry the invest- 
ment along which I have not included In the 
above. 

Take it all in all I am right at $2,000 behind 
on the deal, so I trust, friend, you will be very 
careful in taking up a farming proposition in 
"Swamp-Easf Missouri and follow my advice 
to either try a rental proposition for a year or 
work for somebody else a season. 

With every best wish that your experience 
may be the direct opposite of mine, I remain, 
Respectfullv vours. 

HUGH D. STUDABAKER. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



014 572 844 



32 



